With age comes hope

When we are young - and I mean teen young, early twenties young - we swing wildly between supreme confidence and crashing insecurity. Some of us thrive in our youth, others hide and wait for a more sensible age to come around. Either ways we survive it - with heartache, innocence, joy, angst - all mixed together and helped along with the love of family & friends & time, in the hope of our advancing years bringing us to a more settled, more stable life.

September and October are strange months. Growing up I didn't know a lot of September/ October people, I never read the Linda Goodman sun signs for Virgo's or Libra's. Then I met V who is a Virgo and Linda Goodman's Love Signs became my secret bible. But that was it, V in September and his brother and my uncle in October. That was it. And then suddenly over the past few years, like an odd shaped stone collecting moss, I found myself with so many dear friends and family whose days of birth are in September and October. So, without naming names, you know who you are, I want to wish all my September & October friends & family a very happy birthday, a year ahead of joy and peace in its many forms, be it with work, relationships, life.

And since so many of them are inching their way into the late twenties and lovely thirties I wanted to find the perfect go-for-it song. Of course being a boyband groupie makes this difficult without utter sop. But I've been thinking of this song for a while now - since mid-September when I started to write this post in my head. I like the Ronan Keating version (this may not be the original). And then today I tried to embed the youtube version of it but failed miserably. So here is an abridged version of the lyrics:

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat, but always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid life ever leave you empty handed

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance,I hope you dance, I hope you dance

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out, reconsider

Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance,
I hope you dance (time is a wheel in constant motion always)
I hope you dance (rolling us along)
I hope you dance (tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder)
I hope you dance (when those years have gone)

Happy birthday! I know it's a bit of a morbid song, forgive me. But I just wanted to reflect on how trying life can be for some of us some of the time - whether our search for a job, our doubts about talent, our reach for love, our yearning for a different life. Life is a seeking adventure and all I guess I wanted to say was keep dreaming, keep reaching out, keep the faith. And smile a lot.

Happy birthday people. Can I just say how glad I am that you are MY people!!