45 Random Thoughts on my 45th Birthday

Every year since I’ve worked at Spurling, I’ve done a list of random things equating to my age (this is my sixth list....)

Sometimes it’s random things about me, sometimes it’s random thoughts, sometimes it’s just random-random. This year, I’ve been thinking more about random things I’ve learned that I’d like to pass down to my niece and nephew.

But speaking of random…

1. Apparently “rando” is the new term for a random person. Thank you to “Murders in the Building” for helping me improve my slang and make me look like an old person trying to stay current.

2. I’m now old enough that drug store reading glasses aren’t too powerful for me. So that happened 30 years before I thought it would.

3. Which I should be sad about, but really, it’s just cheaper and more convenient than my progressives.

4. Which I lost.

5. Don’t lose your progressives.

6. But forgive yourself if you do.

7. In fact, learn to forgive yourself as early as possible because damn, it gets harder and harder the older you get.

8. When you move into a new place, the first thing you should do is hang something, or many things on the wall.

9. Ok, maybe that’s number two, because you should probably have the electricity turned on.

10. Or you could live by the light of candles, off the grid. That’s cool too.

11. But put things on the wall.

12. Give out at least 12 hugs per day.

13. Ask first.

14. It’s cool if you give most of those to your dog, cat, or chinchilla.

15. You don’t have to ask your dog. Unless it’s my 1.5 year old basset hound Vinnie. He’s particular.

16. Don’t talk about food as good or bad.

17. Don’t talk about yourself as good or bad when you eat certain food.

18. You’re not being good when you eat a salad and bad when you eat french fries. You are making a decision about what you are eating and that decision is not related to your goodness or worth as a person.

19. Speaking of which, think of food as something that can nourish your body. We live in a culture that often tries to make you less. Eat less, weigh less, subtract, subtract, subtract. Don’t forget to add.

20. With any luck, I’m only half-way through my life and I spent way too long trying to be smaller and trying to be less. Don’t be like Aunt Kimmie on this one.

21. Don’t fight your nicknames. I used to hate being called Kimmie. Then I embraced it as a term of endearment. And being Aunt Kimmie is one of the best things in my life.

22. That doesn’t mean you should all start calling me Kimmie....but you could...

23. Don’t take anything too seriously.

24. Especially yourself.

25. As it turns out, using a calendar is not, in fact, a prison. I know, crazy right?

26. I’m a right-brained thinker in a left-brained world. It took me a long time to realize that I’m not wrong for the way I think, but sometimes I have to work harder to figure out how to make some more linear things work for me. But you're not wrong if you think differently.

27. Discern what’s important to you.

28. Discerning is a term I learned when working with a spiritual director, and I have always, regardless of religious practice, found these steps to be helpful when making a decision.

29. Identify the issue you need to make a decision about.

30. Meditate (or pray) about the choice for 30 days.

31. Once you’ve made your decision, talk it over with a mentor.

32. Trust you’ve made the right decision.

33. Very little of 26-29 should come from your brain.

34. Don’t overthink it. What is it? All of it. Any of it.

35. That whole not over-thinking stuff takes a loooooooooooonnnnnnnnggggggg time to get the hang of – but it’s worth the effort.

36. I think.

37. Just kidding – see what I did there?

38. Kindness isn’t just any one thing. It’s picking up trash when you are out on a walk and carrying it home with you. It’s saying a genuine hello to people you meet during the day. It’s putting your little bags of dog poop in a bigger garbage bag because you know the garbage truck workers pick up the trash cans by hand and it’s not cool to let poop fly everywhere on them. It’s tipping more than 20% when you can afford it. It’s asking your partner about her day when you are exhausted and your brain is full of things and you’d rather do anything else than listen, but you can tell something is on her mind. It's thinking of others as often as you can and putting yourself in their shoes.

39. Be around people who appreciate you for being unapologetically, unabashedly you.

40. If I were still 40 I’d be done by now….

41. It might not feel like it now, but you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. It doesn’t matter how unpopular you might feel in high school, how frustrated and unseen you might feel by your parents or coaches or teachers.

42. Trust who you are and who you are becoming.

43. There is a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke that tells you to “live the questions.” I read that quote for the first time 25 years ago to this day.

44. As infuriated as I was when I read it back then, as it turns out. It’s true.

45. Live the questions.

If you made it this far, I thank you for taking the time to read my humble random thoughts.