Tomorrow is my 46th birthday. Sure, getting old sucks sometimes. Especially when I feel like the same person I was in my twenties. Not physically, but mentally.

If I had a time machine, I could go back to the days of driving around with my friends, smoking and listening to Biggie Smalls. We’d pull up to people we knew at the gas station and ask if they wanted to meet our friend Mick. They’d say ok. We’d tell them he was in the back seat. They’d stick their head in and see my laminated Mick Mars wall plaque buckled up back there. They’d look at us like, “WTF?”. We’d say, “Yeah, that’s Mick. He has no legs.” Then we’d laugh really really hard and drive away. No one thought we were funnier than we did 🤣 At 46 I’m laughing to myself as I type this, so yeah, I’d still fit right in.

But to balance things out, and be grateful to God for giving me another year of this glorious life, I keep an email from someone I knew who died far too young. It’s at the bottom of my inbox. When I cull through the other items and get frustrated at all the to-dos and reminders and invoices, I eventually get to that email and say to myself, “Oh yeah, all this stuff doesn’t really matter. I’m just so lucky to be alive.”

So to celebrate my 46th birthday, here are 46 random things I’m grateful for:

1. My comfy bed

2. The game 1010

3. Hummus

4. TV shows

5. Ice cream

6. Ringo Starr

7. Rainbows

8. Thunderstorms

9. Slippers

10. Rivers Cuomo

11. Sun Chips

12. Coffee

13. Headphones

14. Audiobooks

15. Seat warmers

16. Thoughtful people who give you a puzzle because they think you’d like it

17. Post Malone

18. Brownies

19. French Fries

20. My hammock

21. Neighbors who let you put your overflowing trash in their garbage can

22. Pinterest

23. Thanksgiving dinner

24. Thanksgiving day parade

25. Peanuts cartoons

26. Vince Guaraldi’s jazz music

27. Snow

28. Carolina skies

29. Sunsets

30. Sunrises

31. Clear & starry nights

32. The luxury of time

33. The sound of cicadas in the summer

34. Celine Dion

35. 3 MCs that were on the go, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

36. Pat Sajak

37. Bagels

38. Sunglasses

39. Dinner tables

40. Clean water

41. Garlic bread

42. David Bowie

43. Gayle King

44. Vaccines

45. Chip & Jo

46. Texting

There’s a million more things I could list but these all just popped into my head.

Here’s to another year filled with gratitude! ♥️