Sorry that I’ve been missing in action. My birthday was last week, and I’ve been doing lots of celebrating thanks to my wonderful friends who know how to make sure a birthday girl has tons of fun! Needless to say, there have been lots of lunches, brunches, dinners, and other fun things that have kept me busy, such as going to my very first Clippers game… with killer seats, on top of that (thanks, Christie), and going to the LACMA (thanks Chris and Jeff) to see the beginnings of the famed 340 ton rock installation (“Levitated Mass”), which will be open to the public come June, as well as “Metropolis II,” Chris Burden’s amazing installation of model skyscrapers, cars and trains.
Anyway, it has once again made me appreciate how lucky I am, and how incredibly fortunate that in my journey of life, I have met some pretty damn amazing people who are my friends. True friends. That’s lesson #1. Surround yourself with friends who make you happy. You don’t need a lot of them; you just need the ones who are there for you.
Lesson #2: Surround yourself with friends who make you laugh. OK, yes, surround yourself with people that make you happy, but it is even more of a gift when you have friends that keep you laughing so much that you feel it deep down to the recesses of your insides. I have never laughed so hard…. daily and continuously… than these last two weeks. I have some of the funniest, wittiest friends. Actually, my big takeaway is that I want to be that funny. I’ve always been the laugher and not the comedian/enne, but I mean, who doesn’t love Ellen DeGeneres? Or Joan Rivers? Hmmm… something I need to work on, for sure. What a talent to make others laugh.
Lesson #3: Appreciate your life. My life has taken some twists and turns, and it is most definitely not a “perfect” life, but really, in retrospect, it is a perfect life…. MY perfect life. Every day is a new adventure. There is so much to learn, to see, and interesting people to meet. So, go for it. You and I have nothing to lose when we live full lives.
So, those are my top 3 lessons for this birthday year. Of course, there are more, but I might as well write a book to detail them all. For now, I’ll stick to these three and hope that you, too, will LOVE YOUR BIRTHDAY!
No Ugly Duckling 