Not A Sprint

Like wine through clay,
joy in his blood bursting his heart—the bliss!

Robert Browning, Pheidippides

It is my 26th birthday, today.
More pressing is that my exam, culmination of the last 3 months of my life, is next Friday.
I am therefore resolutely trying to ignore the fact that my birthday has arrived until then.

It has been a marathon, sans doute.

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Quarter Century

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what
they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten,
and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and
three, and two, and one…

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion
or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden
dolls that fit one inside the other,

each year inside the next
one.

—Sandra Cisneros

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Always Be Here

Chocolate, Cherry, and Cacao Butter Cake | La Pêche Fraîche

You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing.
You don’t have to do anything to earn it.
Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success—none of that matters.
No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.

Ram Dass

Chocolate, Cherry, and Cacao Butter Cake | La Pêche Fraîche

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