Over the past months I have had several reasons to thank God for uncles and aunties. Their care and love and concern for us has truly been felt and appreciated. Now it's time for me to be thankful for cousins, too. Especially for cousins who invite you over for a weekend and remind you of all the beautiful things out there that make life enjoyable and worth living.

I spent the last weekend at my cousin's summer house in Southern Estonia. I've never been very close with him (it's hard to be close friends with all your cousins when you have 15 of them), he's about 10 years older than me and we have always lived different lives. But he's really cool. So when I called him last week and asked about his family's weekend plans he invited me over and organised a whole weekend package for me. That package included playing with his two little adorable sons, meeting my uncle and auntie, going all the way to their summer house, skating on a frozen lake, eating good food, sweating in sauna, and also... wait for it, wait for it... jumping into an ice hole. I'm not much of a sauna fan but I'm proud to announce that three times during that weekend and for the first time in my life I ran from the cottage to their lake where men had hacked a hole in the ice with an axe and jumped in. My body was like 'WHAAAAT?', my heart was beating like crazy and once after climbing out from the icy water the world started spinning in a very, hmm, peculiar way but it was such a cool experience nevertheless. One thing less on my bucket list. Winter swimming - check! After Sunday morning ice hole exercise, sitting in their little kitchen with traditional pancake and coffee smell all over the house and with their kids running around and playing, I thought to myself, 'Don't give up on life just yet, there are still beautiful moments and beautiful people that make this whole life thing worth it. Good things still exist.' I think I'm slowly coming back to life.

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Happy birthday, dear J.! Have a good new year. Make it count.