iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

It's my birthday! In keeping with tradition (20 on LiveJournal, 30 on Twitter, here we are now), an inexhaustive list of things I've learned and found helpful in my 40 years alive: 1. If they're not giving you performance raises or bonuses, you're getting paid to meet expectations, not exceed them.

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And thank you all for the sweet birthday wishes!

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I'm neck deep in a depressive episode and today is also one of grief. I lost my first baby on my 19th birthday. Took a decade to find any joy in it again. Now, having spent most of my life not wanting to live it, every birthday feels milestoney. But I found joy in my heart today. I'm so thankful 💜

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It's my birthday! I got a few packages this week that I opened this morning - thank you so much for helping celebrate my birthday! SO excited to have hit 40!

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39. Worrying by itself makes everything worse, always, in every situation, regardless of the circumstances, unequivocally, without fail. 40. When all else fails, chuck it in the fuck-it bucket and throw it overboard.

37. Puttering around doing little bits and pieces of to-do lists is more satisfying and less tiring than working hard to check off a long list. 38. Gaze at the moon every chance you get, just take that beauty right in.

36. Tell yourself you're proud of yourself when you accomplish something, no matter how glorious or mundane it is. Literally say it out loud, "Hell yeah, I'm proud of myself right now."

33. Salt water fixes a whole lot of problems. 34. Believing in small, every day magic makes living a little easier on the hard days. 35. Tell the people you love that you love them every single time you think the thought.

32. This is parenting specific: Don't anticipate hard phases. Exist in the moment at hand. Your kids need you to be flexible and adapt to their changing needs. You won't be the same parent throughout their lives in the same way they won't be the same kid from infancy to adulthood.

29. It's safe to feel happy. Naming it doesn't jinx it. 30. You will have a whole bunch of greatest loves of your life, it's a wonderful thing. 31. A nice, big, comfy blanket is a good investment.

27. Take the pictures and don't use beauty filters. You will come to appreciate your features, and the people who love you love you face-to-face unfiltered anyway. 28. Light more candles and look at more flames. It makes your brain feel velvety.

24. Freedom lives in understanding that absolutely no one ever thinks about you as much as you do. 25. "Because it makes me feel good" is a good enough reason for doing anything. 26. Feeling sad isn't the same as feeling bad. Sometimes things are sad and it's okay to just feel sad.

22. It's better to get the silly tattoo with someone now while they're still here than a memorial tattoo for them later. 23. It's okay to do things the wrong way if having to do it the right way keeps you from doing it at all (talking about, like, household chores and hygiene, not destruction ok).

20. You probably won't regret shaving your head (it feels amazing in every way I promise) but 21. While you may end up regretting choices you do or don't make at various points in your life, that doesn't necessarily mean it was the wrong choice.

18. A shorter life you enjoy living is better than living a long life for longevity's sake alone. 19. "Takes one to know one" is the best way to return compliments, especially if you're uncomfortable accepting them, folks never see it coming and it usually makes them laugh.

16. Some of the most beautiful, healthiest, and meaningful relationships of your life will be transitory. 17. Any time you have a negative gut reaction to someone or something innocuous, question why you feel that way (you'll find a lot of it is based on real grody social conditioning).

14. Hardly anything in daily life matters as much as it feels like it does in the urgency of the moment. Take a breath. Wait as long as you reasonably can. Look at it again. 15. Eating *enough* is more important than anything else when it comes to food.

12. Your thoughts and feelings about spirituality/religion/mysticism may change many, many times, and that's okay. Just let other people have their own. 13. It's okay not to know stuff, but it's not okay to be unwilling to learn.

9. Some hurts don't heal and you'll be okay anyway. 10. You *have* to learn to be comfortable alone in your own company, you absolutely just have to. 11. Living is easier when you get over your fear of getting older and dying.

7. You can let it go. All of it. Sometimes when you carry something for a long time it starts to take on the virtues of a safety blanket, but I promise it's safe to put it down. Safer than holding onto it, even. 8. Looking older as you get older is healthy and normal and actually very, very cool.

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5. If your gut instinct in any given moment is to be kind or giving, act on it. 6. For the most part, most people aren't doing things *to you*, on purpose, to hurt or upset you. They're thoughtless or careless maybe but rarely intentional.

3. You don't have to forgive anyone for anything but you do have to get to whatever point means you lose that gnarled-up ball of thorns in your gut about it. 4. It doesn't matter what books you read or how you read them but it does matter that you read something somehow on a regular basis.

2. Not everything happens for a reason. Some things should never have happened. Some things are outrageously, painfully, violently unfair. It wasn't written in the stars. It wasn't part of a master plan. It wasn't fated. You didn't deserve it. It makes sense to be mad about it.

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