birthday Archives - Adulting: Second- Half

Bombastic Birthday

Happy Birthday to me! I read this quote the other day:

I am 53 years old today. I am level 53. I have passed the 53 mile marker and I am zooming into my 54th year. I think the quote above is true to a point. Life can be truly humbling. I sometimes wish that I had some of that naive audacious panache that I had when I was younger – that young woman who marched right in, and worried about the details later, before many times being humbled by having my ass handed to me on a platter. But honestly, I don’t believe in living life with regrets. Throughout my lifetime, I have wasted time, I have wasted energy, I have wasted my breath on many, many things that do not matter. But I have lived enthusiastically and hopefully. I have loved deeply and fully. And truthfully, I’m still pretty damn loud.

I am a big believer in the onion/rose principle, that says that you can use each day of your life to unfold, until one day you end up at the deepest core of your true essence. If you shame yourself with regrets, you stop unfolding. You stay as a tightly wound, stony ball or a rigid, stubborn bud, holding desperately to layers that are fervently asking to be let go.

When I read the quote above, I thought to myself, this is why many people are afraid of self awareness. This is why so many people are unlikely to explore their own patterns and beliefs, and how these things affect their lives. Many people’s deepest fear is shame and recrimination. They fear the realization and disappointment that they haven’t been true to themselves for a long, long time. But this is a waste! What if all my life I was walking around with blinders at a banquet? The only thing I could see was the bland mush in my plate in front of me, because the blinders blocked everything else. Let’s say for 53 years, I wore the blinders until I started getting the sneaking suspicion that I could remove my own blinders. If I am brave enough to remove my blinders, I realize that there is an enormous banquet of delicious variety and beauty for me to explore and to experience beyond the bland mush. Now at this moment, do I sit and wail about the 53 years in which I thought that I could only have mush? Do I hate myself for keeping my blinders on for as long as I did? Or do I dive right in and excitedly explore the delights of the banquet that I have opened myself up to for my own exploration and exhilaration?? Some people are so afraid of realizing what they may have missed out on, that they stubbornly hold tight to their blinders and settle for the same old mush.

People are living longer than ever. At the risk of sounding crass, more than a few notable famous figures have passed lately who I was shocked to find out that they were still alive. Many people are living healthy, purposeful lives well into their nineties, and even past a century. It is never too late to take off the blinders. It is never too late to keep unpeeling the layers. What if you have only got one day, or maybe even one more minute to experience “the banquet”? Is that not better than never, ever experiencing it at all??

So, this I say: the older you get, you can get more loud if you want. Life is humbling, so be humbled, but use it as a wake up call to unabashedly Live and Love, Loud and Proud. Take your blinders off and don’t waste your precious time on any more nonsense.

I love you. Thank you for being here with me. It has made my birthday even more special. <3

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. I recently discovered the poems of Jane Hirshfield. She says this about poetry:

“I don’t think poetry is based just on poetry; it is based on a thoroughly lived life.” – Jane Hirshfield

Sheep
Jane Hirshfield

It is the work of feeling
to undo expectation.

A black-faced sheep
looks back at you as you pass
and your heart is startled
as if by the shadow
of someone once loved.

Neither comforted by this
nor made lonely.

Only remembering
that a self in exile is still a self,
as a bell unstruck for years
is still a bell.

And this poem below is my own. (Write a poem today, yourself. It will deeply remind you of your own thoroughly lived life.)

Ash – wholly by me

Ash, you were born at a time that I felt a little lost,

And you came out of me, to bring me back to me.

You’re brave and curious and quirky and true,

you’ve helped me to process life and loss and love,

and the everyday banal humming,

along with the unimaginable events,

all of the usual and unusual matters that accumulate,

to make up measured time,

Five years of my lifetime.

Thank you for these five insightful, meaningful, awakening years, Ash.

Thank you for bringing me beautiful witnesses with their own wisdom.

Thank you for being a gentle holder of me and my own posterity.

Thank you for the purpose you give to me in the morning,

And the anticipation that you gift to me when I lie down to sleep.

Thank you for being my playground and my mirror and my muse.

I love you, Ash. Happy Birthday. May there be many more.

******Today is the five year anniversary of Adulting – Second Half (Ash). Thank you for your presence, and your attention, and your precious time, and your loyalty. Thank you for being a part of it all. It means the world. – Kelly

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

2023 Part 2

Picture Credit: Gregorio Catarino, Twitter

Today is a playdate for me with some of my longtime playmates, so I’ll keep this post short. Happy July! Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit

Happy Birthday, G! You have always made your mama extremely proud. I love the man you have become. Your interests are vast which makes you so interesting. I love you.

The second half of the year is here. Make it amazing . . . . if you want to . . . .

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Pet Rock Friday

Good morning. I am still in a NyQuil haze. First I’d like to send a birthday shoutout to my aunt today. She is that “cool, stylish aunt” who everyone needs to have in their life. She bought me my first phone (rotary, pink) and took me to my first ever concert (Olivia Newton John). She’s always been incredibly supportive of my family and of my writing. I love you, AB!! Have a great day!!

I’ll cut right to the chase to my favorite for today because this damn virus allows me the energy of a sloth. Today’s favorite is the adorable Pet Rock seen above created by JellyCreativeCo on Etsy. I gave her to my youngest son who works remote, since he is already entertaining the idea of getting a dog for his new apartment that he moved into earlier this month. (I am totally to blame for this, I understand. We have three dogs, but still . . . .) Anyway, I hope that this adorable pet rock staves off the dog idea for a little while, since my son is still getting settled into his new digs, new job and new routine. The adorable pet rock comes with an adoption card and everything. Everytime my son looks at it smiling up at him, my son will remember that his mama is rooting for him. Good rock!!

Have a great weekend, friends!! See you tomorrow!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Stretch Out Friday

Hi readers and friends. We have a lot going on in our family right now. After a long, protracted, difficult decline, my mother-in-law passed on yesterday. That’s our sad, bad, terrible news. Our happy news is that today is my birthday, and I am receiving the best birthday present that I could possibly ask for at this time. Our youngest son is graduating from college today, a semester early. My longtime friends and readers know that we went through pure hell in the fall of 2021, as our son’s epileptic seizures were not being controlled by medication. He was suffering at least one major seizure a week, for several weeks in a row. We spent a lot of time in hospitals, and we had a lot of teary, distraught conversations about what to do next. Our youngest son talked about dropping out of college more than once. But, he persisted. We persisted. His wonderful doctor persisted. And we found a combination of three medications which have kept our son seizure-free for over a year now. (Do you remember that part yesterday when I wrote about the clouds always, always passing? . . . . they do. They do. The clouds ALWAYS pass.) And today, our youngest son becomes a college graduate! And I am so utterly grateful for this turn of events. God/Life/Universe: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Family/Friends/Readers, for your kindness and support and prayers and love: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Please bear with me these next few weeks. Writing is therapeutic for me, and I fully expect to continue to write my daily blog. I’ve written on the daily for years now, in my normal times, and in my not so normal times. I have written this daily blog from different states, and even being in different countries. I have definitely written this blog in so, so many, many different states of mind (which you probably can tell). The bottom line is, I love to write, and I love the connection that I have with all of you, my beloved readers. And I am a big one for consistency, reliability, dependability, devotion etc. Still, I’ve got a lot going on. Things are pretty bittersweet here with my family. I may not be as consistent or as “level” as I would like to be in the next few weeks going forward, so please just bear with me. I always bounce back. And I need you.

Okay, I know. This is a lot for a Friday post. I have readers who tell me that they only check in on the blog on Fridays, to read about my “favorite stuff.” They don’t want to go all deep and philosophical and that’s okay by me. Believe me, I get it. I love my stuff. Stuff is the stuff of life. Today, I will still share a favorite with you. My favorite for today is a chain called StretchLab and I adore this place. It’s like doing yoga that’s carefully assisted. It’s like a combination of yoga and a massage. You don’t have to get undressed, and you feel so damn good throughout the whole experience. (Come on baby, make it hurt so good!) If you have sore spots on your body (who doesn’t?), this is the place for you to go to experience some real relief and to get reacquainted with your physical body.

Okay, all. I love you. Happy Friday! Happy Birthday to me! I hope to “see” you tomorrow.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Writing About Storms

Today is my birthday. I just “cheated” a little bit and I went back and I read what I wrote on my birthday during previous years on the blog. It’s funny, some years the birthday post was an entirely long, emotional outpouring and then, one year I didn’t even mention that it was my birthday. That’s the way of birthdays, right? Some years you wake up all chipper and excited and you almost feel like that 11-year-old kid again, when your birthday was almost as exciting as Christmas. And then other years, you feel very quiet and introspective and reflective and maybe even a little somber. And sometimes, you even wish that you could avoid the whole hoop-la altogether. Today, I woke up with a slight migraine. So until my Advil completely kicks in, all that I am feeling today, on my birthday, is annoyingly “thumpy” in my head.

Recently, close friends of mine asked me if I was ever going to write about some really difficult chapters and happenings in my life. They encouraged me to do so. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. These painful situations in my life, involve other people and I am always tentative to write personal things about other people. I feel tentative, because living to the age of 51, has shown me that what I believed to be true at one certain stage of my life, oftentimes, after some time has past, and some processing has created a little bit of growth in me, I often see the various situations and happenings in my life, in a different light. At the very least, after time, and some processing and some personal growth, most of the happenings (the good and the bad) in my life lose their intensity and their consumption of my time and my focus of thought. Perhaps, this is what we really mean by “forgiveness.” When emotion is processed and it dies down, you are able to look at situations, and at other people (and even yourself) with real clarity and sometimes even compassion. You are able to pick up the broken pieces. You discard what is no longer needed, and what is too heavy to carry, and you do this in order to move on forward, on your life’s path, standing a little taller and walking on, a little lighter and a little more confident. I am not sure if writing about what has happened in the past, would help me on my path. It might just add a heavy load to my bag, that I no longer want to carry on my journey. Time will tell.

In life, we all have our storms, right? And when they are torrential storms, they have the tendency to shape us, and to mold us like no other events have ever done in our lives. When these major storms hit our life’s path, our first tendency is to ignore them, or to try to run away from them, or we make up stories, pretending that these storms aren’t actually happening . . . we just don’t want to admit to, nor look at the damage that these violent storms are creating in our lives. We just don’t want to deal with the storms. But eventually, these storms’ relentlessness requires us to face them head on, because if we don’t, we are likely to diminish and/or to perish. Our pain in the storm finally becomes overwhelmingly greater than the pain and the fear that we have about the unknown and of change. When we are at our utter weakest in the storms, when we are totally exhausted and completely battered and spent, is usually when we finally surrender, and this is when the miracle happens. We become stronger than we ever knew was possible. We make it through the storm, to the other side and we head on safely towards the light.

In my life’s experience, I am best able to come to peace with any situation that has happened, when I know that I can trust myself to protect myself. When I step out of my victim chair, and I take back my power and I say, “No more,” is when the people and the situations that used to consume me, lose their intense pull in my life. My attention goes elsewhere, to the people and to the situations and to the experiences that bring me the most love and joy and wonder into my life. And what is left from the storms of the past, are a few scars, but also the lessons, and my newfound strength, and most importantly, the love and the trust that I have for myself. I realize my own worth, and that I am the protector and the guardian of my own worth. Having gone through the storm and having made it through to the other side, I realize what a capable guardian of myself, I truly am. I realize that I am loved and I am valued by myself, and that feels really good.

The storms in life are often necessary, in order for the greatest truths and understandings to come to light for each of us. Of course, the raging storms are real, and oftentimes, we are not even the creators of the storms that hit us, head on. We were just sailing along, minding our own business, when the squall comes out of seemingly nowhere, sometimes with an unwarranted vengeance, and complete with soulless pirates, all out for blood. The feelings and the desperation and the anger about the unfairness of it all, are real and hard and deep and understandable, and the feelings must be felt and they must be processed, in order for us to make it to the safe shores beyond the storms. Some people choose to stay in the storms. These people may like the excitement and the intensity and the drama of the storms. They may only feel truly alive, when they are in the middle of a barrage of storms. And that’s okay. It’s their journey. They are the navigators of their own paths. Some people would desperately like to escape their storms, but they never come to the realization that they are their own tickets out of the storms. They don’t comprehend that they are their own captains. We can try to show them how we, ourselves, made it out of our own similar storms, but in the end, they must take their own brave moves, to navigate towards the clear, peaceful skies. We must respect other people’s right to journey in life, as they see fit, but we must also remember that we always have the right and the ability to navigate out of a storm, even when others choose to stay in the storm.

I think that I am all done with today’s birthday post now. I wonder what it will mean to me when I read this post, on my birthday next year. One thing that I have learned with each passing year, is that whenever I think I am totally certain about something, something tends to happen (sometimes even a storm) to change my surety. With every birthday, another layer is removed, and the mystery of it all, still continues on. One thing that has never changed for me, is that I am so grateful for this experience of living Life. I am grateful to celebrate yet another birthday and I can’t wait to see what is on the horizon next, storms and all.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

B-E-B

Today is my youngest son’s birthday. He is still away at college. He doesn’t have any final exams today, but he does have two tomorrow, so he’ll spend his day studying. We laughed together this morning, when we talked about that fact. Adult birthdays aren’t quite as magical as when you are little kid. Real life still has to happen, with a cake break, if you are lucky.

It is strange not having him home for his birthday. I have been through this now, with both of his older brothers, but it still feels strange. Is there anything more intimate between a mother and her child, than her child’s birthday? On the day of a child’s birth, the child gets the blessing of life on Earth breathed into them, and also, at that very moment, the mother has already begun the gradual, painful, yet affirming process of releasing her child and letting go.

I asked my son, “How do you feel about it being the last year of your teens?”

He answered, “How do you feel about it?”

My real unsaid response was this – Oh, honey, you don’t want me to unleash the storm of feelings that I feel on every single one of your and your sibling’s birthdays. The torrent of pride and love and bewilderment and fear and memories and giggles and gratefulness and giddiness and pain and hope and guilt and amusement and joy and awe would probably be too much for both of us to handle . . . . but maybe not. Maybe that torrent of emotion is what we both felt, on the crescendo of that beautiful winter day, nineteen years ago. And I think that we have both turned out pretty good, so far. We weather well. I know that I love our relationship. I know that I love you from the deepest wells of my heart. The relationships that I have with you and your siblings and your father, is what my makes my life sing its very song. Thank you for the gift of my sacred song.

Instead I answered, “I feel great! I’m proud of you. I love you. Have a wonderful day!” And then we hung up, and I let go, just a little more.

Fly Away

Happy Birthday to the love of my life! My husband turns 50 today. Yesterday, I decided to make our rather torn up (due to renovations) house look a little more festive for his birthday, than its current “war zone” look. I went to the florist/balloon section of our local grocery store. There, they keep all of the mylar balloons in bags with pictures of what they look like. I picked a “5” and a “0” and I asked the florist to fill the balloons while I did the rest of my shopping. When I came back to get the balloons, imagine my surprise that these balloons are about 3 feet tall, each, when filled with helium!!

Now, I drive a small convertible. There was no way all of the groceries and the balloons were going to fit into my car with the top up. So, I had to put the top down. I had to weigh down the balloons with my purse and some heavy groceries and I had to drive home at the sludgy speed of a turtle. Drivers in my area of the country, are a bit aggressive and obtuse, so I literally had someone right behind me, tailing me, when they could have driven around me. I’m wondering if they did it to annoy me. It was the most stressful 10 minute drive home, I’ve ever had!

Still, the balloons made it home without flying away and they definitely add to the festivity. The things we do for love. I’m glad that I didn’t get pulled over, although a police escort might have eased the tension of the drive. It’s times like this that you wish you could have an out-of-body experience and look at yourself, and the crazy things that you do in life. It would be very easy to be self-amused, in my case.

A Bluish-Black Butterfly

Today is my youngest child’s 15th birthday. She is our only daughter out of our four children. She is a gift from Heaven. She is a gift from our fourth baby, who came before her.

When you have a big family and the three eldest kids are boys, people just assume that we kept trying until we got a daughter. But that is not really the truth. You see, we were finished with our family after three kids. That was the number of kids that we had always planned on having. We felt very lucky and blessed to have three healthy, robust, energy-filled little boys who kept us very busy and on our toes.

The fourth time that I got pregnant, I was on the pill. (let’s just say that I am what is often called a “fertile Myrtle”) We had just moved to another city and another state for my husband’s job. We had left our family and friends behind and hadn’t quite found “our legs” yet, in our new place of living and being. My husband’s new company expected all of his waking hours and then some. (this was before work/life balance became a buzzword) So, I was a young, harried mother in what felt like a foreign land, trying to keep three little energizer boys corralled, while my husband was always working and here I was, pregnant again. This wasn’t like my other pregnancies. This wasn’t a planned pregnancy. I was devastated. So was my husband. Dejectedly, we tried to turn our heads and hearts around to this baby, considering him or her to be God’s plan, which I now realize was His plan, but just not in the way that I expected the plan to go. I started my vitamins and I started going to the obstetrician, and I tried to feel happy when I saw the little flutter of the little baby’s heartbeat. But I was tired. I was lonely. I was overwhelmed. It was right after the first trimester of my fourth pregnancy, right after we had told everyone that we had another baby on the way, that I started bleeding profusely. We lost our fourth baby when I was about 14 weeks pregnant. The doctor scheduled the D&C at a little country hospital because all of the large hospitals were full that day. That, in itself, turned out to be part of God’s plan too, because the nurse attending to me felt like she was an angel sent from God. She had all the right words, she took the time to hold me and she let me cry and cry. That nurse understood how painful a miscarriage really is for a woman. She understood the loss, and she was patient with my denial, when I kept saying that I think that we should do just one more ultrasound, just to be sure. I sent her flowers after I recovered at home. I don’t remember her name, but I will always remember her heart and her kindness. And her wings.

I had a really hard time getting over my miscarriage. I came from an “old school” background where I was taught that miscarriages were probably really disguised blessings, because there was likely something “wrong” with the baby. Yet, I had so many mixed feelings. Having started the pregnancy so apathetically, I felt so guilty and so ashamed. I felt like I was being punished. I tried to focus on the blessing of our three young sons. I felt a compassion for women who had multiple losses and long struggles of trying to get pregnant, like I never had before. I was so, so sad – sadder than I had ever been in my life. I felt a sadness that was so deep that I sometimes thought I would just sink into it and then, the only thing that kept me going, was the sense of duty I felt to my family. My husband had scheduled a vasectomy, like we had agreed, when I was still pregnant. At that time, we felt like we couldn’t afford or deal with any more “surprises.” Still, we found reasons to cancel that appointment, and then reasons again to cancel the rescheduled appointment.

One day, after weeks and weeks of thoughtful, prayerful contemplation, I admitted to my husband that I didn’t think I would fully recover from this miscarriage, unless we had another baby. My heart was telling me that our fourth baby’s brief appearance in our lives, was on purpose. That baby was a messenger, telling us that our family was not complete. That baby’s purpose was to let us know, that our family needed one more baby. My husband felt my strong, earnest calling and he understood and he agreed. We got pregnant the first time that we tried again. And we were thrilled and excited and grateful from the get-go, with this new pregnancy. We were so excited for another baby, boy or girl, it didn’t matter!

On March 23, 2004, our beautiful daughter entered our lives and our family was made complete. She has been such a blessing of joy, and beauty and wonder and excited energy from the minute she was born. She is exactly what our family needed, a mighty, strong, yet feminine touch. Our daughter is the beautiful, excited exclamation point at the end of the statement, that describes our family. Her middle name is “Faith.”

Whenever all six members of my family are on a trip, or hiking a trail, or just hanging out in the yard, I often see a bluish-black butterfly. My heart smiles a little and I usually whisper, “Hi, baby.” I think that our fourth baby’s spirit likes to flutter by sometimes and hang out with the family. He or she is a very special part of our creation and I’m so happy to know that he or she is still a part of us, helping to guide us through life. He or she is an excellent guide.

Happy Birthday Beethoven!

Happy Birthday to Beethoven and to me! Beethoven is 248 and I am 48. I’ve actually reached the age that when someone asks me how old I am I have to roll my eyes up into my head, think, do some math and finally come out with the right answer. When I was a kid, I used to think that was a lot of bunk when adults did that, but I now realize that forgetting your age, really does happen. You reach middle age and you know that you are in a certain age range, but the actual number never sticks with you. I’m not sure it that is a sign of early dementia or subconscious rebellion/denial, but I now know that whatever causes it, it’s a real thing. However, for today, I know that I am 48.

I guess being 48 means that I really am approaching age 50, in a very serious way. Honestly, I really don’t mind. My body is definitely slowing down, and that gets frustrating. I wore some pretty high heels to the Christmas party last night and I feel like I ran a marathon in record speed this morning, my body aches so much. Still, from a mental, emotional, and life stage point of view, I am very optimistic about my fifties. I feel like I know myself better than I have ever known myself. I think I approach life with more curiosity, appreciation and acceptance than I ever have before. I no longer try to conquer and control Life. I’m better at letting Life flow.

When I was on the brink of my forties, my whole life changed in many, major ways. Let’s just say that my husband and I were the Poster Kids for the Recession. Our life as we knew it, completely and irrevocably disappeared and we ended up having to move our large family to a whole new city and state, to begin again. And, guess what? It’s a cliche to say it, but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to our family, on so many fronts. I strongly believe that God/the Universe knows what it’s doing. My faith lies in that.

Years ago, I read a very fun, upbeat book in which the author insisted that everything that happens to you, is meant to guide you to joy. Now, I get that statement can be a tough pill to swallow, especially when you are going through one of those really rough “Why me?” times in life, but if you really look for it, there is a glimmer of goodness and transformation in every single experience. I believe that with every fiber of my body.

I once again want to thank you for reading my blog, commenting on my blog, bolstering me and rooting for me. You, my readers, have been a wonderful gift in my life this year. Happy Birthday to me! It’s going to be a great year and a great upcoming decade for all of us!!