More pictures of me in one post

than you've seen in the 4 years of this blog put together.

Today is my 30th birthday, and I'm having a pretty good day. I'm ignoring my pain as much as possible, heading to the hotel to take a hot shower, and sitting on the front porch with my grandmother, feeling the cool breeze and listening to the life stories of people I wish I'd known (or known better). As a rule, I don't particularly like pictures of me, and I've been stingy when it comes to posting them here, I know. But I'm in the mood to look back and to look forward, and I thought this would be a nice way to do that.

You don't have to watch the 3 minutes or so of pictures from my life: I'll give you the Cliff Notes version if you'd like. For all my challenges and issues, through all the disappointments and losses, I've still been one lucky lady. I have a lot of people in my life who love me, who I'm lucky enough to love, and who've made my life a real experience. It's never been easy (see: name of blog). It probably never will be. But, for today, all I can be is grateful. (It's too bad only one person in any of these pictures will read this, but I'll try to tell the rest of them in person, if I can.)

Have a great weekend, everybody: I'm going to try for a computer free weekend myself, but we'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow.