It’s my birthday today.

63 years on this planet earth

That’s an amazing amount of inhales and exhales since my very first breath into this life.

Just a few days ago my sister’s son Scott and his wife Jenn had a baby boy.

Brand new. Took his first breath.

And then today driving home I heard lyrics to a song,

“naked as we came.”

We really did all come into this life naked.

We didn’t arrive with things and attachments and stories.

We came in clean and fresh and new.

What happens between that first breath and that last breath is all up for grabs.

I guess you could also say that what happens from my next 63 year old breath and my last breath is up for grabs too.

It’s not already written in stone, it’s created moment by moment.

It’s where we put the focus of our attention.

It’s what we claim to be important.

It’s what we believe to be true.

So on this day of my birth

I honor all of us, both young and old.

Through some miracle of miracles, we breathed our way into this most spectacular adventure.

Let’s not waste a second of it,

before we breathe our way out.

Drop all the armor, drop all the pretense, drop all the bullshit, drop all the stories

and become as naked

as when we

first arrived.

Welcome to life Dylan Thomas