Right Here. Right Now.

Today is my birthday, which at Dirty Footprints Studio is the official New Year!  I am a humble 37 years old today. And to be honest–I’m happy to finally be 37–because I spent two years being 36.

No joke.

Partially because I tend to not make a real big deal about my birthday and partially because….honestly… I don’t know why–but when I turned 35 years old–I thought I was 36!?!!

That was the year that I became pregnant with Phoenix–and I strutted around telling everyone that I would give birth when I’m 37 and even on all the medical forms I had to fill out that year–I wrote down age 36 when I was really 35.

So this time last year my birthday comes rolling around and my Mom writes “Happy 36!” in her card.

What? 36?  My Mom doesn’t remember how old I am?  What’s up with that?

That’s when I learned that I would once again be 36 and that I skipped 35 altogether.

(Yeah, total bummer.)

I never got the chance to be 35 and let me tell you–those two years of being 36 have been some of the most beautiful and absolutely the most difficult years of my life.  I’m welcoming 37 with arms wide open and an even wider heart–but most of all I’m embracing 37 with a whole new perspective and view on life, family, art, and Dirty Footprints Studio.

You see, in just the last three months alone, I feel like my whole life has been hit by a wrecking ball over and over.  At first I was in total resistance mode–I felt sorry for myself–I refused to really see what was happening–but then at 3:36 AM, mid November, in the corner of an ER room, my eyes finally opened.  I felt like I woke up and there was Hansel in a hospital bed (for the second time that week) and I realized that life as we knew it was not working if it had come to this.

Just like that, a wave of peace I hadn’t felt in a very long time, came rushing over me and the air around me started whispering in waves simplify, SIMPLIFY, simplify.

So to sum it up neatly, since then my life has been one BIG bad ass surrender.  Plus, the Universe, with it’s complementary wrecking crew has seemed to help a lot with that huge lesson.  I think before my little “awakening” in the ER I would have seen much of the destruction in my life as things falling apart–but now I choose to see it as miracles happening left and right. That basically I’m letting the Universe come in and take charge–and you know, being that the Universe is so big–well there needs to be more space, thus the wrecking ball action!

But the thing that I hear the loudest about turning 37 is that it’s calling me to come back into myself in every way possible.

This New Year ahead is going to be a return to my own FEARLESS Painting Practice–my own Art–my own creativity.  It’s going to be a raw and rugged journey deeper into my Art–deeper than I have been in the past few years because my focus has been on teaching and the business part of Dirty Footprints Studio.

The thing is that I know this has to happen.  I feel it in my marrow.

But to follow this truth means I have to let go of so much that I’ve grown comfortable with–that I’ve come to rely on–that I’ve come to believe is true about myself, my Art, my business, my life.

On top of that even bigger changes have happen in my family, but I’ll save that for another day–another blog post, and no I’m not pregnant.

So as I take my first steps into 37, I move from my heart and I’m excited and scared as hell to see what this journey will unveil.  I’d like to think that I will share it openly here with you–to make a promise to be seen more in an unfiltered, ray of sunshine or sometimes maybe just a soft, comforting moon glow.  But to show up and let Dirty Footprints Studio become a true, real expression of who I am.  Right here. Right now.

I hope you will join me–not in your comments necessarily or even loving emails that I’m so blessed to receive often–but join me in your own journey in connecting with the true essence of who you are.  To move forward into the light–even if it scares the gajeebers out of you–and to put your heart first and forward, and pour it in everything you do.

Here’s to radiating together.

Here’s to being seen, surrendering, and wrecking crews.

Here’s to birthdays, brand new paintbrushes, and honoring our truth.

Here’s to a Happy New Year to You!