Today, I turned 38.<\/p>\n
Thirty-eight found me bouncing around in the trunk of a buggy speeding down roads that even God Himself seemed to have forgotten.<\/p>\n
I came across a snake.<\/p>\n
A big one.<\/p>\n
And for a split second, I almost reached for my phone to capture the “wowww” moment.<\/p>\n
Then I remembered\u2014just in time\u2014that I’m far from Lithuania,<\/p>\n
where you can always shrug off a slithering creature with,
\n“Oh, it’s just a grass snake.”<\/p>\n
I saw plump lizards,<\/p>\n
who seem to have forgotten they live in the present, not millions of years ago.<\/p>\n
They didn’t run away from us on four legs\u2014<\/p>\n
they sprinted on two.<\/p>\n
I’d never seen anything like it.<\/p>\n
I stood in awe of the dazzling blue stretching to the horizon,<\/p>\n
a shade of blue so breathtaking that even the French Riviera would have reason to envy it.<\/p>\n
I wound my way along tracks so rugged<\/p>\n
that on the steep climbs, gripping with both hands somehow turned into the feeling that I was clinging on with my toenails too.<\/p>\n
I’m 38.<\/p>\n
And today, holding all of this close\u2014<\/p>\n
among snakes, lizards, endless blue, and impossible hills\u2014<\/p>\n
I realized I wouldn’t trade this embrace<\/p>\n
for being 18.<\/p>\n
Or even 28.<\/p>\n
Back then, I was afraid of so many things.<\/p>\n
Today, I am brave.<\/p>\n
Brave enough, first and foremost,<\/p>\n
to be myself.<\/p>\n
Thank you for all your birthday wishes!<\/p>\n
I am a child of happiness.<\/p>\n
What a gift it is<\/p>\n
to have lived long enough to receive so many of them.<\/p>\n
V.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-23829","istorija","type-istorija","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istorija\/23829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istorija"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/istorija"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}