Birthday month..
August 1.
Kinda big deal. If you are not already nodding in ‘ah-ha’ - it is my BIRTHDAY month. I LOVE my birthday month. Like REALLY LOVE my birthday month - I almost named each kid ‘Augusta’ type of love. I would say I always have, but that would be flat-out lying & I try to reserve fibs for more opportunistic ventures.
I did go through a several years of my birthday simply feeling like a CHORE… or an apology - a trite celebration that all persons involved quietly willed deliverance from. A birthday can feel so very lonely - either a testament of regimented, contrived relationships or the lack of intimate connection at all.
Fast forward a few years, & rewind several from now…
I broke up with the ‘outsourced’ birthday.
It is MY birthday. Seriously… what does it have to do with anyone else? I AM literally the party.
So every year I give myself a gift - the presence of my birthday, free of expectations & the boring, ritualistic bemoaning of age.
My stomach may still twist & pinch like a resistant snake when the obligated ‘Happy Birthday’ is sung by weary relations… but THAT is no longer my birthday…
These days the celebration largely takes place in my HEAD.
I I revel at the magnetic pull that grounds my feet to the earth. My heart stares straight ahead with unapologetic wonder - no feeble regrets for my ‘age’, only a building giddiness to be invited to live this long.
With 46 looming, I have outlived much of humanity & so many women I admire had only just begun at this turn in life. The future is ALWAYS evolving.
BEST of all, I feel like the sky is delicately PAINTING a crown on my head with the litheness of a master. Not a halo… even though it feels LIGHT & possibly transcendent when I am fully relishing in it. A birthday brings the earth & sky into a full circle… again… sometimes with us & sometimes without.
If that isn’t grounding, I don’t know what is…
And I get to CELEBRATE. Gee whiz.
And justify ridiculous, celebratory decisions all MONTH long.
Still working on the stinking goose pattern in stolen moments, a few photo sessions, and getting gross with renovations while doing all the summer things!
Let the August love begin!