Celebrating 33 years!!

Sometimes you just need a real cupcake…

…. and that’s okay.

It’s my birthday and I just wanted to share my views on birthdays …. I know SO many people who dread birthdays.  They are one year older.  They have more wrinkles.  They feel like they are one year closer to the end of their life.  So depressing.

I take a different viewpoint.

A few years ago, my boss’s son (who was probably about my age now at the time) passed away unexpectedly and suddenly in the middle of the night.  He had two young sons and a wife…. It was a tragic, tragic loss. A few months later, it was his wife’s birthday.  She posted this long, beautiful post on Facebook that another colleague shared with all of us.  She essentially said – you truly never know when it is your time.  There are so many people who would do ANYTHING for another wrinkle on their face, for that cellulite on your thighs for that grey hair on your head.  There are people who will never get that chance.  She vowed that she would never lament another birthday, because another birthday meant that she got to live another year watching her beautiful sons grow up.  Another year meant she got to celebrate another years worth of holidays and family get-togethers.  Another year meant she had another year of memories.

Ever since I read that, however many years ago, it just changed my perspective completely.

Do yourself, and those whose time on earth has been cut short, a favor – CELEBRATE your birthday!  Because isn’t being given the gift of enjoying another year on this Earth with the people you love something to celebrate and be thankful for?

I think it is.

Which leads me to a quick convo on food freedom – – – I am still learning what that means for me.  I think it will take quite a while longer to really figure it out, but I am so much closer to it than I ever was before.  What I do know is that my “life-after-whole30” my “food freedom” includes have a real cupcake on my birthday.  And going out to eat and ordering whatever I want.  And enjoying it.  If I am eating a Whole30/Paleo diet (most of the time), my stomach can handle it. Even if I do get a stomach ache, it will still probably be worth it 🙂  My simple point is that food freedom is about finding that balance so that you don’t have to deprive yourself on special occasions!  I mean, talk about living in the moment and enjoying your life and celebrating it — I think that includes eating real cupcakes with buttercream frosting if I want to!

I hope you guys are having an amazing week and that you are celebrating all the birthdays and victories (big and small) in your life.  And really just treating it like a gift. Love you guys!

-E

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