The Birthday Blog

I'll apologize ahead of time for being distracted while writing by Pandora playing the greatest hits of my junior and senior hits (see?) years in high school. How does it do that?

So, yup, another year gone by. I'm perversely pleased to inhabit a year that's divisible by 11, but haunted for probably the first time by the perception that I might really be getting old. Heck.

An infinitely cuter period of my life.

 I do my best to over-celebrate my birthday, extending the events (and presents!) throughout at least the month of September, and if I feel like it, all the way through the 25th of the next month.  (Forgot to send me a present?  There's still time!  No hard feelings!)  I like to think of this as a magnanimous gesture to folks like my dad who has yet to call me, on my birthday, since I moved out of the house. 

Anyway, and slightly more seriously...  While I might be feeling a bit more sympathetic these days to the folks who cringe at the mention of an(other) upcoming birthday, I like to think of the day (or month, in my case) as a more personalized occasion than say New Year's to contemplate this particular moment of my little chunk of existence.  More specifically, what do I want for myself, for my birthday this year?  Despite my penchant for presents, that's not what this is about. 

This year I made a list while sunning myself at Breitenbush:

• To be more honest with others. And with myself, when I can see it.
• To expend less energy in tension.
• To be kinder still to my body, and better anticipate its needs.
• To allow myself to enjoy and experience a moment, instead of perpetually imagining how it could be better.
• To recognize the value of spending time by myself, and find ways to be so.
• To invest in things I've always wanted to do, or envisioned for myself.

So much of my time in Bend has been a gradual unwinding, a taffy-like untangling of my high-strungness.  Only now, 8 months in, can I realize and release some of the poverty mentality that led me to living the above's opposites.  I hope you all are smarter/more enlightened than I.  (If not, take heart.  It only took me 33 years to get to this place.  A mere third of a lifetime!)

In any case, I'm kind of excited for myself.  Writing these things down makes it my job to do them, and has often worked in the past.  It's rewarding to plot my own evolution.  Right now, I'm researching writing workshops and programs.  Imagine!  Something I've wanted to do since I was 8!

Happy Evolution to Me!