July: A Month of Recalibration

Every year around my birthday, I start collecting ideas for how I should celebrate. Outfits. Restaurants. Hairstyles. Weekend getaways.

But somewhere between the scrolling and the saving, I almost always arrive at the same conclusion: none of it feels like me.

The birthdays I saw online kept getting bigger. Each more elaborate and more curated. Yet the more ideas I collected, the less excited I became. It made me wonder: why do I want less when everyone else seems to want more? Maybe the better question wasn't how I wanted to celebrate, but what I needed from my birthday.

This year, the answer came surprisingly quickly. After months of solo parenting, juggling work, and carrying the invisible mental load that so many parents know well, I didn't need another event to organize. I needed quiet. I needed rest. I needed one day where nobody needed anything from me.

I remembered the birthdays I'd spent at Glen Ivy Hot Springs: floating in the lounge pool, red clay tightening on my skin as it dried, controlling my breath as I dipped into the cold plunge. No crazy itinerary, no pressure to document every moment, no performance — just enough space to hear my thoughts.

The older I get, the more I realize my birthday isn't really about celebrating another year. It's about checking in with the person who's lived it. Maybe that's why I crave quiet, not because I'm trying to escape my life, but because I'm trying to return to it.

With gratitude,
Nicole