Happy Birthday Poem (2024)

Happy Birthday Poem 

Happy birthday my love

We have gone through so much together 

Like two trees

Leaning on each other we can withstand any weather

Our leaves swaying in cool summer breeze

With each year our roots grow deeper

We can smell scents from the seven seas

Our love becomes seasoned and stronger

Wise with stories to tell the birds and bees

When one is tired, the other stands taller

With open heart, listen to each other's pleas

And send our worries away with laughter

Popular posts from this blog

Miracle Baby (2026)

Image
Miracle Baby My friend said, “A miracle baby could happen. You never know!” I was 44. I had gotten off birth control pills and I was having hot flashes. Multiple times a day, an internal furnace turned on and I felt sweaty and uncomfortable. I was emotional, crying while listening to remotely sentimental audiobooks. I never used to cry. After some tests, my gynecologist informed me that I was not producing enough estrogen and that I was likely in menopause. Since the age of 39, I had skipped periods about once a year while still on birth control. Each time my period didn’t come, I took a pregnancy test that came back negative. I wrote in my calendar, ‘Pregnancy Scare of 2019’, ‘Pregnancy Scare of 2020’ and so on, until in 2024, I had missed four periods. In what I now realize were my peri-menopause years, my life had changed. At 42, I quit academia and became a data scientist for the LA county government. On my first day, I stood by the window on the 4th floor where my cubicle ...
Read more

Ocean (2025)

Image
Ocean Every time I come to the ocean And watch the powerful waves break I think what a waste of tidal energy We could be harnessing  But ocean never fails To make me feel small And my problems smaller My mind Is like the waves Churning and breaking Destructive and fearful thoughts Fill my mind and then subside My thoughts shout out words I'm ashamed of And shame and desperation make me want to cry There is a source of anger and fear That I come to the ocean to free myself from  But the words that came from the mouth of another Were mean and hurtful Can an apology so quickly erase them from my memory The words burn in my mind Like amber ready to set fire I try to contain them within the 2 seconds of time in my memory But they ring in my mind over and over And then the words I said afterwards by myself Ring in my mind after them The fighting words continue to echo after each other And grow even more violent I know he didn't mean to hurt But at the moment he did With ...
Read more

Dear Recruiter (2023)

Image
Dear Recruiter I was mad yesterday Added up all the years I've been analyzing data Twenty-two, started undergraduate research Twenty-three, published my first paper Thirty-two, got my PhD Forty, finished three postdocs Forty-one, got my first job as a data scientist Twenty years! Half of my life was spent collecting, analyzing and presenting data At forty, I changed career From a neuroscientist working in a laboratory To a data scientist working from home For me, science was all-consuming work done in isolation with little reward I didn't take care of myself I felt like I was never enough Faculty job rejections cut deeper A committee member once asked if I considered myself a tinkerer Questions aimed to reveal if I possessed the magic touch   That would bring in  grant dollars for the next thirty years And if I will have the energy to entertain the students At forty-two, I'm on the job market again Odds are low but you hear from industry quickly Now I'm stro...
Read more