I’m feeling my birthday this year. Thirty Eight seems to register more strongly that I am older than I feel I most days. I’m tired too so that’s definitely contributing - twin toddlers is far more tiring than the eight month olds they were this time last year. We’ve all got the undercurrent of lingering colds this week. No one is unwell enough for a day at home in bed, but everyone is a bit blah. I had big plans to make the most of the time around my birthday this year that didn’t quite eventuate, but I’ll try again next year.

The biggest theme though is that I am feeling the weight of everything that I am not. I’m feeling the weight of all the things I have not done, or not achieved or procrastinated on for far too long now. I’m frustrated with myself. At the same time I’m trying to offer myself the grace of remembering all of the things I have achieved - most notably, raising four tiny humans, my biggest honour and most important achievement. Ever. Mothering them consumed me in a way I wasn’t prepared for - in a good way, so everything else sort of fell away.

Now that I can feel the shift, that we’re coming to the end of the girls’ true babyhood and I can feel myself emerging from it, I feel energised to get moving on all-the-things. There are projects to be finished and new ones begun. There are books and books and books to be devoured. There are meals to be cooked. There is more I want to achieve as a mother, to do better and mother more consciously. There are photos to be printed and framed and hung. Life ready to be better prepared for. But most of all, there’s a big bag of beautiful potential there waiting for me to grab it and fulfil it. Writing here is a part of it, but the ultimate big epiphany dream goal is supporting motherhood in a multitude of gentle, guiding, heart-led ways and I am absolutely ready to do it.

Lets do this, thirty eight!