Handblocked fut felt hat dark blue with blue made in France Never let me go — Dark Blue Fur felt hat trimmed with a vintage Silver Forest of Vermont earring.

Today is my little known Twenty-Five Year Anniversary

Often my daily guided meditation from the waking Up app after taking a comfortable seat is, "Become aware of all that your hear."

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I breathe in. I breathe out.

Today marks twenty-five years since I woke up, and my life was completely different from how I fell asleep.

It was dark. I could see through a small window. Snow flurries were trying to get the attention of the warm funnel of light a street lamp produced.

Mom came over, or was there, maybe she saw my head shift to look towards light. She put her head close to mine, and I asked what the result was.

"Mechanical valve." She replied.

I patted her hand and said,

"OK." In my most stoic ability.

This result has forever changed the trajectory of my life. Many decisions, I would have liked to have made myself were made for me on this day.

It would take me another 4 years to even admit that this made me angry. Maybe I even deserved to be angry. That topic is not for now.

Today I'm breathing, and the thump in my chest is extra loud, as most of the street is away for the holidays, and I've finally managed to get out of bed when I wanted to. Early, it's quiet.

The ideal, or the first objective of this surgery was the Ross Procedure - to switch the place of the pulmonary valve with the damaged aortic valve. This was tried, and failed to work; so I was given a St. Jude's Valve which requires a blood thinner, daily, to ensure blood doesn't coagulate around it. The medicine prevents me the ability to bear children on it. (Maybe there was/is alternative medicine, but there are big with that too.)

The surgery was in fact two surgeries during eight hours in, Syracuse, New York, in December. I woke-up in the middle of a huge snow storm where most, if not all of the hospital staff was working a double shift - therefore 24-hours straight. Even in a city generally prepared for massive amounts of snow - people were blocked. No coming into work, and no going home.

Today I breath in and breath out, the thumping of my heart under my ribs not at all far from the surface of my skin is heard throughout my consciousness. There is no escaping this sound any more than my breathe. If I hold my breathe the pounding continues, and is even more present.

Try sleeping next to a metronome one night and see how well you sleep. At first it will be difficult, no way to get away from this sound. Eventually it might become comforting to have the beat beside you. I have not had a choice, so I make peace with my sound.

I've worked hard in spite of it, became the first known woman to run a marathon with a mechanical aortic heart valve. I have done my best at jobs. Over-worked to ensure I would never have to scramble for health insurance. I have a memoir, in meters of journals on my bookshelves. I don't throw them out, there is at least one good sentence and one drawing worth keeping in each. One day there might be time to extract each.

Today, I have such a practice of gratitude, I've had so much. And what feels like little time; who knows how much left. I want to make the most of it, soar high like Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Knowing I will not escape the sound of my heart, and why would I - I need to help me with direction.

And now after many, too many, years of flying low, I'm ready to soar.