Birthday Eve Scribbles

A little 36th birthday eve reflection on growth, chaos, clarity, and coming home to myself this year.

teddy’s birthday flowers by Kado - love that our birthdays are so close together!

Tomorrow I turn 36, and today (the very last day of my 35th year) I’ve been sitting with everything this year held. I wrote about it in my journal this morning (I’ve been craving writing and silence so I set my alarm for 5AM - Teddy woke up at 525 lol). There’s something about the slow, methodical nature of handwriting your life that feels grounding… almost like it makes time pause for a second.

This year truly flew by so fast. Life moved at a pace I didn’t even know was possible. And yet, when I look back at what happened inside that blur, I’m amazed.

This was T and me last year (9 days postpartum):

and here we are a few days ago:

I wanted to share a few things I wrote down in my journal this AM as I was reflecting on this past year:

• We watched Teddy grow so fast - the sweetest, most fleeting kind of magic

• We bought a new house and started designing and renovating it into something that feels like us - a place we already feel so at home

• We made amazing memories traveling as a family of 5

• One Wednesday met some major milestones (more info to come on our biggest announcement yet this week)

• I started to feel confident in my body again after implementing some serious routine and discipline that felt equal parts impossible and life-giving

• And I went on my first annual sister trip — which I’m already declaring a non-negotiable tradition (more girls and adults only trips pls!!)

And of course, there was the other side of the year — the hard parts that make you sit down on the bathroom floor and breathe deeper. The mental load. The juggling. The nights where one of the boys is melting down, or refusing sleep. The days where my attention was pulled in every direction at once and I felt like I was failing at everything.

What 35 taught me: