Today is my forty-first birthday, and it’s quite possible that I’ve never been happier.

Wait. Did I just write that? About possibly never having been happier? Me? Depressed, anxious, brooding me?

Well, yeah. I’m second guessing myself about whether that’s true, but that’s me too. If it feels true, it probably is. That’s good enough for me today.

This past year has been one of the hardest of my life. At times I wasn’t sure I was going to survive. Nothing was wrong with me, not really, but anxiety had so overwhelmed me that I didn’t see how I could stand it. One night I ended up in the emergency room and spent the night in the psychiatric ward because I was in such a black hole of despair that I was afraid to be anywhere else. Intense panic attacks will do that to you.

And now? Now I’m grateful for the anxiety. As much as it sucked, as terrible as it felt, it has made me a better, stronger person. Adversity tends to awaken us like nothing else can.

I got a wonderful birthday present last night. I was watching TV (“Call the Midwife,” good show if you haven’t seen it) and the episode–which was about a newborn’s death, you know, nothing heavy–made me think about how scared I am of my feelings. Like terrified. Like more afraid of them than anything else. Like I have this idea that if I feel too intensely, it will kill me. But this is good, I thought. Now I know. Another awakening.

And so I begin my forty-second year a little wiser, if a little grayer also.

May we all suffer enough adversity to awaken us fully. But may we not suffer too much. Would it be too much to ask to be able to control the adversity dial, God?

Just had to ask.