What Matters the Most

I didn’t want to come to you all cliche...
I didn’t want to sound fake...


I had been asking God what i was going to write about for my 30th birthday... how i would elaborate on my life over the years...


I am not going to act like everything has been so good and wonderful but ALL IN ALL i have truly been very fortunate.


This is my first “milestone” birthday that i have been actively writing this blog... and i don’t know why it has been so hard for me to get the words to express the accuracy of my feelings.


I am struggling because i am trying to make things complicated and profound. But the things that matter in life aren’t complicated. They are like little flickers that we miss while we look at our phone... they are what we try to get on camera the second time around...they are things we deem small in the grand scheme of things. They are the moments that remind us of how powerful the simplicity of our stories can be.


Small things are big things to me now because i have a toddler running around my house... every little new word and new action he does is huge to me and George regardless of how minuscule would be to someone else.


I think about different instances throughout my life that were HUGE. Things that make me wonder if they would have gone a different way how would my life have turned out...


We tend to harp on the bigger things because they define our life.


It’s the smaller things that get pushed aside or forgotten about almost as soon as they happen. But these small moments allowed the bigger moments to have more meaning.


I remember my last semester at UNA. They were having the day where high school students come view the campus and go to the football game. Well i had to work the college of nursing booth... and afterward i was walking to my dorm room talking to my parents. They were telling me that they were just out and about around BIrmingham not doing much and not 10 mins later they pulled up. Y’all have no clue what that did to my spirit. Just a simple day trip to come see me. See they had no clue how lonely i was that day. They had no clue how lonely i had been that whole last semester. Not because i didn’t have people around me that loved me but because so much change was happening in my life. That small gesture framed the rest of my semester. It let me know they were always there.


Oh what about that time my brother picked me up from school when i was still at Ramsay and he had come home from UNA and i had no clue he was in town and we laughed at the man whose windshield wipers couldn’t stop going no matter how hard he tried to turn them off— lame i know but hilarious to us.


Or that time George and i sat at the table in the fellowship hall of my church and he told me he was going to make me fall in love with him. The moment i knew i wanted that guy forever.


That time me and Daphne and SDot sat in the parking lot of Hawthorne and watched super moon for hours...


What about when my Grandma use to pick me and my brother up from school and we use to go by the gas station and get candy...


Or when my Aunt Audrey use to let me on her lap and drive in Tuskegee...

The many times Justin and I rode through Birmingham listening to 90s R&B and people watching...

Let’s not forget that 3lb 12 oz small baby that i could pick up with one hand. That small baby that allowed me to see that God really does work miracles. That tiny foot with the IV in it. That already tiny onesie that still swallowed his body. That tiny human being gave my life more meaning than anything i have ever thought of.




I can think of so many of these little things that made me feel loved or appreciated or whole. It wasn’t a grand moment that all the stars aligned it was a simple thing that made my heart flutter and my eyes water from pure happiness.


Simple things are truly what makes up this amazing life God has granted us. They make the big things bigger. They make you appreciate people more. They make you realize that life is made up of things that aren’t all meant to be shared on social media but kept in the special corners of your heart and the photo albums of our minds.


So when i think of turning 30... nothing big and complex comes to mind... only the simple things that have taken place in my life that.


Cherishing these things is something i have done over the years and something i will continue to do.


Although turning 30 is huge... what really matters is the small memories i will continue to make with my family. Those small things i can do on my job to make sure my patients go home without any worries. Those tiny instances that God shows me he is ALWAYS looking out for me.


I don’t plan on making big things happen now that i have entered into my 30s i plan holding tightly to those things that really matter.


Happy Birthday to me!!


Until Nothing’s Left...


Brittany