Birthdays have a way of being very troublesome to me. Papabear's birthday especially gets me down because I turn the same age he turns on his birthday just six months later. Birthdays and wedding anniversaries hit me in the head like a ton of bricks. I get depressed. I feel like I'm out of air.
On the outside, to most observers, I am just me, another year older and not changed much. But to me on the inside, it's as if a huge bell is sounding out the passage of time to all the hills and valleys around us. It marks the time down now, not the passing of years as achievements, but more like the blowing out of the few candles left on a birthday cake, one by one. One more year gone....pffft...one less year to go....where are you going, my [old]maid? What looms on the horizon but the setting of the sun.?
Oh well. I came over here to start a post with my life script, of some sort...just for the heck of it. I didn't intend to get all maudlin. But you see what happens when I start to think of birthdays........
Let's see...I was born once a long time ago. It was not a pleasant experience for me nor my mother. It was a breach birth and I have decided that is just what marked me for life, as I am almost always thinking the wrong things, forming opinions and making choices that are opposite to the mainstream. I have learned to watch for whatever I think, as it's almost certain the opposite will be the truth with the wiser decision. I try to gage my thinking now, by understanding this principle. I also usually have had an inkling to be unique. I like the most different choices and things in life. I prefer what almost no one else does. This is fine in an adolescent world where one is struggling to assert one's uniqueness, but in the world of maturity, which demands a good deal of dignity, it basically blows up in my face. I don't get many compliments on my choices of fashion or decorating for example. And choosing gifts for my loves ones often comes very close to being disasterous. I have a very difficult time finding something that becomes treasured.
Oh well. Perhaps Old Age is the time to look back at the years and reflect on all we've done or not done....mostly not done. I don't have too many regrets. I have the most wonderful children and grandchildren. My friends are indeed treasured. And I am content, believe it or not. I just wish..........Hmmm, that could be the subject for another blog sometime.
I'll type later, maybe making birthday week set aside for some nostalgic grumbling. I just wish I wasn't getting old so flippin' fast.
5 years ago
5 comments:
Oh contraire! You are a beautiful, amazing person. I'm learning that even more now than I did before. As I become a mother and am thinking and doing so much for my baby, I just realize with that much more intensity the wonderfulness that is you! I think we should celebrate your birthday big time. Celebrate all you are to all of us. How many women do you know that have held by their beliefs, their values, their honest character? Friends of your children comment on how cool you are, how accepting. How many women do you know who's children's friends want to hang out with them? Everyone, not just us, says how elegant and royal you are.
Now, my dear mother, YOU are the queen! Look at the kingdom over which YOU are the ruler. I wish so bad you could understand what an impact you've had on us- I know we are all crazy,but I just think that's God's way of saying how wonderful you are too- he trusted you with not just one, but FIVE crazy people to help get through this life :), not to mention my father! Just think how much crazier and messed up we'd all be without your sanity!? I'm being flippant, but really. YOU mean so much to me that I really think it has to be worth something; if you could only feel it, you'd know it is the world!
You're too ready to lay down and die. If you mentally put yourself in a casket, how can death not seem near? And no matter how much time you have left, you'll feel like you're at the end because now you're just waiting. That's one way to live, I s'pose. I don't recommend it.
On the flipside, you could stop all your whining and start doing what you want with life. Really. And, like many have done before you, you could go on and live to be 101. In which case, you've got 40 full years ahead of you! You're barely halfway done in that case!
But, you know, it's up to you.
Well, I said I have the most wonderful children in the world and you two prove it.
Thank you so much. You both have great things to say and you are the world to me.
I am humbled. I'll get off my f-t b--t and behave myself. I love you both.
P S oh, that's how you spell contair...^.^) I was wondering.
Where have I been? I am just reading this. Well, I am sitting here in my own little hot tub of self-pity today...It's nice to have children to defend you, isn't it! The trouble is that we are still us on the inside, but our outsides don't match, so we have occasional trauma over this problem. Nobody but us knows of the disparity between our insides and our outsides because they think our outsides are perfectly normal, and we know different. So a little foray into the world of "nostalgic grumbling" is in order now and then. Then I guess we dust ourselves off and get on with it. I am still sitting in my hot tub of self-pity, so I am not yet dusting off. Maybe by tomorrow I will have managed to be philosophical. (I don't think like other people either, and they tell me that the older people get, the less they are like those around them. I guess we turn into distinctive individuals by the time we are old. I think they are called characters.)
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