310. At the Threshold l What Do Birthdays Measure? Receiving Love with New Eyes

[00:00:06] Welcome to At the Threshold. I'm Yolanda Canny. These are conversations about the life transitions that quietly reshape us. Not because we've arrived at all the answers, but because life has a way of teaching us something new when we're willing to pay attention. I'm glad you're here. Let's begin.

[00:00:28] A recent birthday surprised me. Not because of my age. Not because of the gifts. Not because of the flowers. It surprised me because it helped me see an old story with new eyes. Birthdays have always been a little complicated for me. I imagine they are for many of us. We tell ourselves, they're just another day.

[00:00:51] But birthdays have a funny way of waking up stories we've carried since childhood. Stories about being remembered, being celebrated, being loved. As this birthday approached, I noticed those old stories beginning to whisper, Would enough people remember? Would I feel celebrated? Would this birthday somehow tell me how much I mattered?

[00:01:20] Then I caught myself. Just a few days earlier, I'd been talking with Juani Iris Manley. One idea from our conversation stayed with me. Leave room for life to surprise you. So that morning, I found myself saying those words over and over. Let the moment surprise you.

[00:01:44] Instead of trying to create the perfect birthday, I decided to stay open to whatever the day brought my way. And something really beautiful happened. Okay. I treated myself to massage with Victoria. I wandered through Bloomingdale's and bought myself a few things that made me smile like new underwear. I found a beautiful new pod and some succulents that now greet me every morning.

[00:02:15] Steve and I stayed on standby in case Emma needed help with her mood. And throughout the day, flowers arrived. Beautiful arrangements. Unexpected expressions of love. I realized something. When we learn to love ourselves, we take so much pressure off the people who actually love us. They no longer have to prove their worth.

[00:02:43] They simply get to express their love in the ways they know how. Sometimes it's flowers. Sometimes it's a phone call. Sometimes it's a text. And sometimes it's an email from a long-lost friend. Sometimes it's a simply showing up. Love has so many languages. We miss some of them when we're looking for only one.

[00:03:11] Because I don't eat flour or sugar, birthdays don't look quite like the traditional celebrations you're probably used to seeing. There's no big cake. No elaborate dessert. And that made me realize something. Food is one of the ways many people express love. Just because I celebrate differently doesn't mean that love is any less. The expression changes. The love doesn't.

[00:03:40] A day or two later, something happened that I could never have planned. I was sorting through hundreds of old slides my father had taken while I was growing up. Because I was bused an hour away to school and because my birthday falls in the summer, I'd always believed I never had a birthday party when I was growing up. It was simply a story I'd carried.

[00:04:07] One of those quiet conclusions children sometimes make about themselves. Then, I found a slide. There I was. There I was. Five years old, standing in our backyard, surrounded by children, having a birthday party, playing pin the tail on the donkey. I just sat there looking at that little girl.

[00:04:30] Looking at the evidence that the story she'd carried for so long wasn't the whole story. Her loneliness had been real. Her feelings had been real. But they weren't the entire picture. There had been more love than she remembered.

[00:04:52] And somehow, finding that one little slide felt like watching something soften inside me. I didn't feel as though I had corrected the little girl. I felt as though I had finally embraced her. As children, we don't collect memories. We collect meanings. We decide what events say about us.

[00:05:22] I'm not important. I'm not celebrated. I'm not loved. And we carry those meanings into adulthood as though they were facts and very, very true. Some of those stories are true. Some are incomplete. And perhaps one of the gifts of growing older is that we have the opportunity to look back, not with judgment, but with compassion.

[00:05:50] Not to rewrite the story, but to see it more completely. As I reflected on this birthday, I realized it wasn't really about celebrating another year. It was about receiving. Receiving love. Receiving kindness. Receiving surprise. And receiving a new understanding of an old story.

[00:06:19] Maybe that's what birthdays can't measure. They can't tell us how worthy we are. They can't measure how deeply we're loved. But they can reveal the stories we're still carrying. And invite us to hold them a little more gently. This birthday reminded me that happiness isn't something other people deliver to us, wrapped in ribbons. It begins with how we choose to meet ourselves.

[00:06:50] Everything else. The flowers. The phone calls. The kindness. The email. Becomes icing on an already delicious cake. As I look back, I realize the greatest gift wasn't something I opened. It was learning to let the moment surprise me. And in doing so, I think this little girl inside me discovered there had always been more love than she remembered.

[00:07:20] My hope is that wherever you are in life, your next birthday won't become something to suffer through or a measure of how loved you are. I hope it becomes an invitation. An invitation to celebrate the life you're already living.

[00:07:53] To receive whatever love finds its way to you with an open heart. To hold your old stories with compassion. And to leave room for the day to surprise you. Because sometimes, the most meaningful gift isn't one we unwrap. It's a new way of seeing ourselves.

[00:08:23] Thank you for walking this threshold with me. If today's reflection resonated with you, I'd love to hear about a birthday that changed your perspective. Or a story you've revisited with new eyes. Next Tuesday on Girl, Take the Lead!, I'll be joined by Leigh Caraher, CEO, author, speaker, and someone deeply committed to helping organizations thrive

[00:08:49] in a fast-changing, multi-generational workforce. Leigh and I explore her goal of helping 5,000 women refine their communication style. The common mistakes we make when trying to resolve issues and how thoughtful communication can strengthen our relationships, our leadership, and our lives. Until then, take good care of yourself and remember,

[00:09:16] sometimes the greatest transformations don't happen because our past changes. They happen because we see it with new eyes. Talk soon. Bye.