Today I am 30! (Well, okay, birthday was yesterday.)

I keep thinking I should type up some big master post or manifesto or something. Three decades! That's pretty cool! However, I kinda feel the same as when I was 29 and 364 days. I am old enough to understand that in some ways, a birthday is just another day.

And in others, it is not just another day. Today feels the same as yesterday. However, it does NOT feel the same as 365 days ago, at 29.

On my 29th birthday, I was approaching the tipping point of a slow nervous breakdown. This was entirely due to a job which did not fit, that I'd grown out of long ago, but still clung to out of fear. It was the first job I'd had out of college. I kept telling myself "Next year, next year I will try photography, I need another year..."

Then the position was eliminated. It was finally next year.

And I'm now a freelancer. No health insurance, no promise of any income, no guarantee I will even get to do this one more day. I did something really hard - I asked for help.

You all said "Yes."

You booked shoots and threw out crazy ideas and bought prints and invited me into your states and lives and even your homes. I joke that you all keep my cat in cat food. This is true. More important, though, you all brought me back. I wake up happy and that is enormous.

Don't know how long I'll get to do this crazy thing - but whether it's 30 more years or 30 more minutes, it's something I couldn't do without everyone's support.

Thanks so much for that.

*blows kisses, and wish I could send you all cake*