Healing, Hiking, and Holding the Damn Line-birthday style.

Let me start with this: I don’t do birthdays. I mean, sure, I’ve had a bunch of them. Traditionally, I like to coordinate them around one key objective-being far, far away. Ideally with my husband, ideally in the woods. Preferably with no cell service and zero chance of someone popping up with a surprise cake and a round of awkward “HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR AMBERRRR” off-key screeching.

Listen, I get it. I go full Pinterest mom when it’s my daughter’s birthday. She gets the balloons, the custom cake, the whole celebration station. But me? I don’t need the gifts or the overcooked special at some overpriced restaurant. I want an experience. Take me camping. Walk in silence with me through the mossy trail. Get me a massage and don’t make it weird. THAT is how you love me on my birthday.

This year, though? This year was different.

We were out of town for a lacrosse tournament-the first one my daughter’s team has won this season. I got to be there. I got to witness the joy on their faces. The sweaty hugs. The screeching celebration that sounded a lot like feral banshees with glitter in their cleats. It was magic. Honestly, it was the best gift. They even sang to me at dinner (okay, ambushed me with a birthday serenade), and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t cringe. I let it in. I received it.

I don’t usually do that.

For a while now, I’ve gone through the birthday motions. The dinner, the cake the “so what do you want this year?” as if I’m compiling an Amazon wishlist. I get why it makes my sister sad that I don’t want to celebrate. We’re Irish twins -just a year and five days apart-and birthdays have always been a shared thing. What I’ve realized is this: I’m not against going out for my birthday. I’m just against feeling like the only way to make a life milestone is with food and forced cheer.

Could we not go for a hike and call it holy? Maybe a facial? A walk followed by a salad we choose ? Not because “well, it’s your birthday, so you HAVE to have cake.” I don’t want to eat my feelings or swap the same $100 back and fourth with a bow on it. I want to do something that lights my soul on fire.

Truthfully? This past year cracked something in me. Illness, surgery, healing-not just physical, but the kind of bone-deep unraveling that makes you look in the mirror and wonder where the hell you went. I’m trying to put myself back together, but the pieces don’t quite fit the same way anymore. Maybe they’re not meant to.

My sister-God love her, she is a devout, church every Sunday, bless-the-meal, faith-on-fire kind of woman. And I’m… not. I’m more of a drop the “f-bomb in child’s pose” kind of spiritual. Yoga, breath work, walking barefoot in the grass with a cup of tea and a head full of chaos. That’s my alter. But when I fell apart on her birthday (yeah, timing), she told me to open the faith-based books she gifted me prior to surgery. She told me, “just try, maybe something in here will speak to you.”

So I’m reading. And crying. And meditating. And crying again. I’ve probably shed more tears this year than I have my whole life. While it’s exhausting, it’s also doing something. It’s clearing space. Making room for whatever’s next.

I’m working on being “healthy.” Not just the kale and squats way. I’m talking about the real kind-where you speak kindly to yourself. Rest when our body says “no more,” and remind your brain that it’s not the boss of you. I’m letting go, one white-knuckled finger at a time. Learning to trust the weird cosmic playlist the universe keeps throwing at me.

Will I be “there” by next birthday? Hell if I know. But, I will keep showing up for myself. I will keep moving my body, keep walking barefoot in the grass, keep reading, keep healing. And yeah, maybe I’ll lose another 20 pounds. Or maybe I’ll just lose the guilt, the shame, the need to have it all figured out.

Ether way I’ll keep walking this road. Preferably up a mountain, with no birthday cake in sight.