here's what i love about this photo...

I'm turning 40 and i'm happy, surrounded by my loving family and friends. I live in a beautiful area and have a great (albeit old and crooked and falling down the hill) house. My job is satisfying and i feel safe and secure pretty much all the time. When I was going through a particularly dark period in my life I was in a session with a therapist i saw twice a week for over a year. On this particular session she asked me to sit quietly and slowly form a picture of my future life. The life i always wanted and dreamed to live. And then she asked me to tell her what i saw. The main things i saw were children (this was way before we had Kai)... and then i saw myself cooking, I had kids running around and i was looking onto a green garden. I felt secure. I had so much love. I had big comfortable furniture (don't ask me why but the couches featured very prominently in this vision). This was my happiest me i could envision and it made me cry when i was talking about it because that was so far away from my reality then and the pain i was going through. So now 13 years later, I am 40 and I am looking at this picture and thinking about that session with Dr Evelyn Goodman and thinking i've been so blessed to reach this point. I'm happy. I'm surrounded by children. And I have love and support all around me. And I have cheesecake, which is just an added bonus : )