I've just passed my birthday.....kind of quietly with no cake, candles nor champagne. Don't worry ---- I'm not having a pity party either. Just reflecting on life. And how ironical it is!

My son asked what my thoughts were as I turned 53.

Hmmm......

Actually, as I looked back, I thought: "Gee, I'm old!"
When I was a student and my teacher was 52, I could not imagine myself to be that age.....ever!

But as I look forward, I'm thinking : "Wow, I've got 70 years more!"
( Oh yes, I'm gonna live to 120.) And I feel excited about the new things I'm doing now ---- writing for a website, teaching a group of China nationals who speak limited English while I speak nil Mandarin, and living simply, ie. living a less cluttered life. And I feel a fresh burst of energy!

Isn't it ironical that I tell people to celebrate life, events, occasions ---- "Go on, have a cornetto when your first baby tooth drops off" ---- and yet it's so good to just sit quietly and listen to my inner voice on my birthday?
I looked around me.
Sure, it was a dream to have a bigger house with more room and space for the kids back home, yet it's actually great to have a one bedroom apartment now, and have only what's essential, not aesthetic, surrounding me.

It's also ironical that I've been a healthy horse (at least over the past 12 years) , and two weeks ago in this foreign land, I was so sick, I laid in bed, curled up in excruciating pain while my husband fulfilled his marriage vows and looked after me "for better, for worse; in sickness and in health"!

And of course, it's ironical that in this Arab-speaking land, I'm thinking I should learn Mandarin!

Guess that's life.....