I turned 31 today.

Last night Heather and I went to our favorite Thai restarurant for dinner to celebrate. We shared some chicken satay to start, and I ordered the khao soi and a Thai iced coffee.

The khao soi already comes spicy, but I wanted to take it up a notch. Our waitress told me that it comes at a 3 on a 1-5 spice scale. I opted to go for a 4 this time around, which was a decent bit of heat. I think I could probably go for the full 5.

We rounded out the meal with some mango sticky rice for dessert.

Afterwards, we went home and watched KPop Demon Hunters. The movie—and the soundtrack, in particular—is great. I highly recommend you give it a watch, if you haven't yet.

While figuring out what I wanted to write about on this day of my birth, I find myself in a similar situation to what Justin Duke observed on his 27th birthday:

it seems weird to do one of these annual posts both for my birthday and for the ending of the year, but also i want to indulge a little

There is a lot of overlap between what one might want to write about in a birthday post and an end-of-year review post. Both occur on a yearly cadence, and—in my case—are separated by just 4 months.

However, I think that they can ultimately serve different purposes. In previous posts that I've written on my birthday (28, 30), they are very much about me and how I am feeling on this day that marks the passage of one year of life into another.

Today, I don't really know how to feel. I had a good time celebrating with my family, but after we left I've been feeling hollow.

This month I've been revisiting some hard memories with my therapist, and unfortunately it's not a trivial exercise to put those feelings back into the box when the session is over.

I've been listening to the new Three Days Grace album, Alienation, over the past few days. I've listened to the album a few times through already, but this morning I was really paying attention to the lyrics of the track "Never Ordinary":

We were never ordinary
All the weight we carry will help us write our story
In the darkest night, you were born to shine

This reminded me of something my therapist and I were talking about on Thursday: that my gifts and experiences can be a powerful tool, if I can learn to navigate the downsides.

So my goal for 31 is to learn how to navigate.