Birthday looming 🎂

My birthday is looming...it's a really hard time for me mentally and emotionally. It's now a few days away and the anxiety and sadness are already building. I'm not sure why my birthday is so hard. I think maybe because it's really hard to be happy and celebrate life when a piece of my heart is missing. I'm getting older and living my life and someone I dearly love is forever 13 in Heaven. It's hard to accept that fact and try to come to terms with something so wrong and unfair. Last year my birthday was one of my most difficult days since Mary passed. Looking back on it I feel like I had a mini meltdown. I felt alone, lost and confused. This year I am trying really hard to stay positive and not get sucked into that deep dark hole which was really hard to climb out of the last time. I am working hard to try and look forward to a future with more personal growth and more happiness. I know I most likely have many years of birthdays to celebrate without Mary until we can be together again and I have every confidence that we will be together again. I have so much goodness and happiness in my life and I will hold on to that and look forward, not backwards. If anyone reads this blog entry my message to them is this: Live your life big and treasure every good moment. I see kids dying everyday, young spouses die unexpectedly and older people with full lives die daily. Maybe you need to repair bridges or just hug your loved ones a little more. Take today to do that. You never know when this life will end and once the person you love is gone it is too late to change things. If you find what makes you happy grab onto it and never let it go. Live a life full of love and purpose and be thankful for the good things in your life. Since losing Mary I have had moments of wanting to shut down, give up and/or just run away. I fought through those difficult feelings to find reasons to live again and there are many. Mary wants me to be happy and 
she wants me to live. She wants me to really live with a purpose and desire to make the most of my blessings. I TRY to do that everyday. Sometimes I fail but these days I am more successful than not. Thank you God for this life, for ALL the lessons and every experience. I don't say it enough...but "thank you." Here is to being 44. I am going to attempt to live everyday to the fullest. 

I read this article today and it said it perfectly. I ask you to read it (attached at the end) and take it all in. I will hopefully have many more birthdays ahead of me and I feel I have leaned what really living truly means. But here is a reminder from a 24 year old who has a short time left. Mary taught me what living was all about. She lived everyday to the fullest. She had a lot of life to live but didn't get the chance to live it like she deserved. So I choose to have passion and do it for her. I won't give up. I will be brave and hopefully leave the earth a little bit better than I found it. 
"Powerful Advice From A Dying 24 Year Old"

http://buff.ly/2sL5FhC