>Today is my birthday. I am 36 and I am happy.  Often when I say this happiness is taken from me like a rug from my feet. I slip and once again I am disheartened.  And if that should happen today, it is okay. Today my gift to myself is not to eat cake, but to celebrate just the same- for who I am, where I’ve been and who I am becoming,   It is a time to relax and just be, accepting what is and what isn’t, and of course I am being challenged. Some people I used to hear from on my birthday are absent on this one, and I am quietly, maybe not effortlessly, accepting what is.