A few days ago I celebrated my 37th birthday. I have no qualms about my age, in actual fact I rarely even think about it. What I did discover though, this year, was that my overall attitude to life has changed a lot over the past year. The only thing I could think about on this birthday was that I feel that I have let myself down. Things I wanted to do, but never did...people I wanted to spend time with, but never got around to... time I needed to spend with my children, but had to work instead. Philosophising was the name of the game this year, and believe me, it was no fun.
I wondered, as everyone around me was drinking to my health, how I managed to get myself into such a rut. Where had the free spirit gone? Where was the dreamer, the ideologist, the perfectionist - those parts of me that made me ... me? The answer was nowhere, and the only thing that I wanted to do was to look back on this year. A year of sheer hard work, even getting up in the morning had become arduous. What had I achieved ... to my mind ... nothing. A quick run through of the year went something like this:
1. Working hard for peanuts
2. No holiday (for the sixth year in a row)
3. Less free time
4. More stress
5. Bigger bags under my eyes
6. No pick me ups
7. Aches and pains in unusual places
8. Still working on an unfinished book
9. Battling to save natural areas like the one I chose to live in
On the plus side:
1. My kids are well
2. I walk a lot
3. I'm still singing
4. I'm still writing poetry and songs
5. I have met a lot of new people through my blogs
6. My mind is still in one piece
I've never really had a birthday like this one. It was different. I somehow feel more lost now than I have ever felt, although it shouldn't be like this. I'm at a point in my life where I should feel more secure and I don't. The reasons are many. I have even felt that I must have managed to attract sadness and misery at some point throughout my life, and now I just can't seem to get rid of it. Somehow I seem to have lost my way, and now it's like wading through a muddy river, always getting stuck, watching life pass by and knowing at the back of my mind that I am missing out on something ...
Anyway, I blew out the candles on my cake, making a wish, and believe me this years wish was from deep within me. I let a teardrop fall, and thanked the lord that it was dark, and no one noticed.
I hope your birthdays are a lot better than mine ...
