The Gift of Being the Baby of the Family

I used to think being the youngest meant missing out. Turns out, it was the best training for a joyful life.

When you’re the youngest, you spend a lifetime watching everyone else live first.
It’s part blessing, part loneliness.
The older ones make the choices, take the risks, and age before your eyes while you quietly study the pattern.

What I saw wasn’t just birthdays piling up.
It was bodies giving out, energy fading, dreams shrinking to fit smaller rooms.
They didn’t know how to care for themselves because no one had ever shown them how. I came along 17 years after the first four siblings. I had plenty to observe!
And somewhere deep inside, I promised myself I’d write a different ending.

Long before “clean eating” became a trend, I was already paying attention to nourishment—not just food, but energy, conversation, and environment.
Thirty-five years later, that quiet vow turned into a way of life that keeps me curious and healthy, even as the years add up.

At first, being the baby felt like exclusion.
But that distance was training.
Observation became my early superpower

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