The Ultimate Birthday Gift

I haven't met anyone yet who each year says "Yea I'm turning the age I should be turning. Just like last year, my life events, finances, and relationships are exactly where they should be according to how many years it's been since I popped out."

I can already tell you why I haven't met that person. They don't exist. All those things mentioned are social constructs built around you. They vary depending on the culture you come from, the culture you presently live in, and the culture you see yourself being a part of in the future.

The Law 

Here we are now left with the law in the society we live in. --> America

18- I was finally able to sign all my own documents, have an un-restricted drivers license, and vote. (No more forging mom's signature :-0 )

21- I was finally able to buy my own alcohol and stop sneaking into bars and clubs by using a fake french accent and pretending I was foreign. (Je m'appelle Alissa. Je ne parle pas anglais)

25- I now have less fees for renting a car. (Maybe I'll own one by the time I'm 30)

But that doesn't seem right to leave the fate of a birthday up to the law it co-insides with. At 25 I've reached one of my last known restrictions. I thought about the past years and what made them special. Each birthday has been so different;I've been sick in the past, in another country, and now on a different coast than all of my family. That being said, I never felt lacking or that I missed out when the variables of life changed. I've always felt they were good, life was good.

"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.Knowledge and love are both indefinitely extensible; therefore, however good a life may be, a better life can be imagined. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love can produce a good life." 

- Bertrand Russell 

Let the love in

So everyday and absolutely every year we learn things, we acquire a new understanding, and become all the wiser for it (hopefully). What has made my birthdays so special has not been the laws that I've reached or the new knowledge I've gained. It has been the love I let in, no matter how far, how sick, or how different things seemed to be, that has made each year as full as the last. 

What does it mean to let the love in? It means a few things but firstly, people give love all the time around you but its easy to dismiss because of pride, prejudice, or your own insecurity. We've built up walls and behaviors that make showing human-to-human love seem weird or off. Letting the love in with people is literal. Accept the kindness and the words on your birthday. Be genuine and gracious.

The second component is letting the love in, from you own self. What do you love? What makes you feel alive? Let it in. Embrace it. I made my own breakfast, listened to some Billie Holiday and Louis, and I wrote. It's easy to forget what makes you tick throughout the year because such is life. Letting your love of pleasures and activities is another way to fill you up, even for just that one day a year.

My trusted and true Billie Holiday poster.

The ultimate birthday gift

"Let the love in" I reminded myself the night before my birthday. It was easy to feel a little homesick and that something was missing. I let that moment have it's time before letting the love in from all those who reached out-- which quickly filled any void I felt before. Then I let the love in from myself. I wrote, I cooked and enjoyed my favorite music. I found solace in remembering that the amount of love I let in helps deepen the capacity for the love I let out or give.

Letting the love in is the ultimate birthday gift because it is a multiplier of all things. It re-energizes your soul, the soul of others, and if you truly let it in, it becomes the gift that keeps on giving.

It won't matter where you are or who you are with. Those things will become supplemental to your birthday if you can practice letting the love in.

How I stopped biting my nails and lost 10 lbs (No products or gimicks, I swear)

This isn't going to be some hokey blog post about a gimmick or diet. This post is an attempt to explain to others how things we think we can’t change or have tried mercilessly to control are actually much less complicated than we thought. This is a story of letting go of the constructs of what life is ‘supposed’ to be in order to allow us to attain the life we were meant to live.

I’ve been a nail biter my whole life. My mom always used to yell at me and say, “You have such nice long fingers, if only you stopped biting your nails!” There are many reasons people bite their nails; stress, boredom, anxiety, or all three. I’d say my reasons were a combination of those things in the beginning and as I got older it was just a habit.

Growing up I was active and never had major body issues but I always felt a sense of “I could be healthier. It wouldn’t hurt to lose some weight”. I am a firm believer that health and wellness are more than the numbers on a scale and are the sum of our emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual states.

In February of this year I decided to take a chance and pursue a dream of mine since I was seven. I first visited New York City on a bus trip to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular with my Mom and Grandmom in the fall of 1997. I can remember getting off the bus and feeling this crazy wave of energy pulse through me.

At seven, I immediately tapped into the electric waves of New York City and a seed was planted. In a very matter of fact manner, I told my mom that I would move there one day. That declaration and feeling stayed with me throughout the next sixteen years of subsequent visits to the city, graduating high school, college, and traveling.

How does this all tie into my habit breaking and weight loss? Let me explain. When I moved up here in February something started to happen. It wasn’t exactly one specific day I decided I was done with my nails or anything like that. It was a slow but steady progression of living the life I was meant to live a little more each day. Before I decided to give New York a try, I sought other opportunities with hopes that they were the answer to my professional, personal, and physical happiness.

After five months up here, trying to literally and figuratively push my way through the crowds of people I encountered in order to make my dream of working and living up here a reality, I have discovered an amazing truth.

I have come to realize that living your dreams DOES NOT mean giving up everything and losing yourself.  Living your dreams mean you are gaining yourself and finding yourself completely! Because I decided to stop forcing myself to be someone and do something I thought was the “right thing” and started focusing on more meaningful experiences and pursuits from within, everything else has fallen into place. My hunger for success and existing fully in life has overcome my hunger for excess food and experiences that I don’t need. Losing weight and breaking my nail biting habit have been fringe benefits of living the life I was meant to live.

Yoga and running have been integral in this process

Let me clarify that this process has been filled with trials, trepidations, and tribulations.  Life is full of those three T’s. The feeling of being alive, the people I’ve met, and the creative waves of energy I have felt have outweighed the three T’s ten fold. 

 I constantly make it a priority to balance my work life, personal time, nutrition, and exercise because all of these areas need to work together in harmony. Isolating one is as useful as only stabilizing one peg of  a four legged a chair. If the other three aren’t secure, the chair will be off balance.

My take on all of this; Let go of what you have (mentally, physically, emotional) in order to make space to receive what you need. I wouldn’t have arrived at the place I’m at today if I had held onto the fears and doubts that slipped into my mind from time to time. This path of jumping to a new city isn't the answer for everyone, but the notion of taking a risk and doing something you've never done will surely give you something you've never gotten before. 

First manicure ever with my "real" nails.