It’s my birthday today. That’s why I decided to give myself a cupcake. I would have preferred chocolate icing but that’s what I got from Pixir. If you’re a parent like I am to two teenagers I don’t have to tell you that they cringe at the idea of mom playing with online photo editors. As far as they’re concerned I am as ancient as the hills and modern ‘apps’ are best left to those who don’t remember adoring their portable cd players as much as they loved those boys from Duran Duran. Anyway, like I said it’s my birthday. And I have had to remind myself of this fact a few times already. Maybe it’s a sign of early onset dementia. Maybe it’s nerves or a stubborn refusal to believe I have well and truly crossed into the Fabulous Forties. I started off the day as I do most days, on my knees, in gratitude for the gift of another year. And then I prayed for understanding. There are lines now on my face that weren’t there a week ago. Sunspots have sprung like midnight mushrooms on my hands and the beginnings of the dreaded ‘turkey neck’ that apparently ‘gives a woman’s age away’. Truth is I don’t want to look like a twenty year old because I am not twenty years old. God knows I don’t want to feel the way I felt back then. I was a starving wanna-be and by wanna-be I mean I wanted to be anyone but me and I wasn’t even interested in trying to get to know myself. In my thirties something shifted and I wanted – no, needed – to figure out who I was before I lost myself completely. There was a lot of soul searching some of it in far flung places with some weird and wonderful individuals. When the drum beating didn’t bring the enlightenment I sought I got some professional help. There was a lot of digging involved (the metaphorical kind). A lot of tears. A lot of laughter. I had to let go of many things and in truth went through what I know realize was a decade of grieving. Getting to know yourself is an ongoing process. I believe we’re all like those Faberge eggs. You take one out only to discover another egg within the egg and so on it goes…I like to think that now that I am firmly in my forties I am somewhere in the middle with this whole process of self-discovery. There are a few more surprises in store for me. And it makes my heart glad. I like surprises.
What are you hoping to discover or re-discover within yourself?
Perhaps your birthday gift to yourself is a healthy wallop of courage or self-belief, a sprinkling of fortitude and strength or the capacity to fall in love again…
Musings 