Today is my birthday. It would take a cake the size of a kitchen table to fit all the candles that I have earned. I don’t mind the bonfire…that amount of candlelight after a certain age can be really flattering.
I am what I am…today. I can be whomever I want to be tomorrow. That is the beauty of a life that is being lived. We don’t have to stay the same…every day is new.
While the skin I have today fits a little differently than the skin I had twenty years ago, (my ex-husband would tell you that my mouth is the same size) I’m growing into my age and I try to make it work for me.
When we’re young it seems like we put a lot of time into pleasing other people. It is almost more important to be liked than it is to be loved. Popularity is the golden ring and we all grabbed at it or wished we had.
I’ve never won any awards for my tact… I’ve pretty much say always said whatever is on my mind. I had a lot of playing time during the end game of my marriage answering my own questions and I have to catch myself when my know-it-all personality shows up like a ball hog.
I have said my share of cringe-worthy things, some of which I would have liked to reword. But I have very few regrets.
I just don’t give a lot of thought to whether or not anyone likes me anymore. Enough people do, and the ones that I would have to work to win over are simply not worth the effort.
Age has afforded me that luxury…that…and the fact that I can’t remember ten minutes from the next what I say anyway….
Aside from my midlife attention deficit and blurry close-up vision (nature’s facelift) the whole age thing really doesn’t affect me that much.
I don’t ever think about what I can’t or shouldn’t do…it gets in the way of what I still want to accomplish.
I keep moving…
Age can be a hindrance for some women, especially if they find themselves single and over forty-five. Once they’re past their best child-bearing years, their allure of danger and unpredictability fades away with the scent of their musk. They lose their perfume. And no amount of paint will up their curb appeal.
Me…I just keep changing it up…just enough behind the trends to look like I’m on the cutting edge. I’ve recently added yoga to my workout regiment. I’m not that good at it…yet. I have a hard time standing still and I had an intimate encounter with the knotted waistband tie of my workout pants trying to hold one of the poses.
The amount of living in your years is what matters most.
I used to think that past a certain age, it was silly to make a big deal out of birthdays. But I now believe that all of them should be celebrations. Age tends to make you appreciate the privilege of growing older.
I don’t ask for things on my birthday. I’ve never really been a girl who says “I want…” I’m making an exception today. As I carve this story into my cyber pyramid, my younger brother is running out of time. His heart can’t be repaired again and a transplant is no longer an option. Hospice angels are caring for him and I am certain he is aggravating them as much as he says they aggravate him.
We joked today about him getting to go to the front of the line at Disneyworld in his Jazzychair. He’s always been so anti-drug and finds hysterical irony in his narcotics collection and morphine drip.
He has a little bit of personal business to finish.
So that’s my birthday wish…let him have this one victory so he can leave knowing he did what he needed to do. Please.
When I started this pyramid on January 1st, I made a promise to myself to do five things everyday:
1. Make my bed.
2. Don’t litter.
3. Look up and let go.
4. Eat cake.
5. Laugh and cry.
I did all of that today…but most of it was crying from laughing too hard…you have to understand my family…we’re Italian.
Day Two Hundred and Eighty Four…Happy Birthday to me. I have everything that I want…and a lot that I don’t need. I am lucky.
Cynthia Neilson