Birthdays...I love them. Always have. Not just mine, everyone's. I think about family and friends birthdays almost daily. I enjoy finding just the perfect thing to make them feel cherished and special. I even spend time pretend shopping for the people I don't exchange presents with wishing I could just pick this or that up or make this or that to brighten their day. I wish you could give gifts without the person receiving feeling as if they have to return the gesture or the price. I wish you could give and have it be accepted as just that...a gift. Maybe I could be the anonymous birthday fairy...hmmm.
So back to birthdays. Mine is in two days. I am feeling blah about it and this is a new feeling. I've experienced birthday indifference before. I didn't relish 25 because I felt like it was the first age that sounded grown up. I was uneasy my 29th and the entire year following because I realized I had lived longer than my own father. But turning 39...well, it has me blah. Perhaps Mother Nature understands because she has ordered up some blah weather to go right along with my mood.
Is it the end of a decade? Is it the fact that I feel like I wasted so many years? Is it the fact that my skin is turning pasty winter white and suddenly showing a thousand wrinkles? Don't even get me started on my hands! I try not to make eye contact with them when they are on the steering wheel. Oh the I could haves, wish I would haves...boy they can get ya.
I just finished running fartleks on the the treadmill. I hated almost every second of it until half way through when 'The Fighter' by Stereo Hearts came on. I paused and put it on repeat and listened to it for the next 25 minutes. I have this song on my play list because my 10 year old asked me to listen to it so I could let him know if I thought it was o.k. for him to download. As I was listening, I asked him why he liked this song enough to want to buy it. (I am a big you need to argue your case parent) He told me he loved it because the song made him think of me. He said I don't quit when it's hard and he wants to be like me. Bahahahahahahahahaha!!! All that whispering in his ear while he sleeps must be working. Too bad his brain hasn't registered me whispering, " you will no longer beat your brother to a pulp".
So on this blah 39th birthday weekend (I normally celebrate the entire month but have scaled it back to a weekend this year), I'm going to take this compliment from my son and my birthday wish for myself this year is to live up to that opinion of his.
But first, I'm going to drown my birthday blahs away with some cherished ones this weekend ;-) I said nothing about wishing to stop being a procrastinator.
