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Celebrating Life and Love

December 4, 2015 //
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It’s Friday, and sometimes that is enough for celebrating. Today, even better, is my traveling partner’s birthday. I smile every time I consider the time we’ll share later today, celebrating life – his life – and love – our love. Beautiful. 🙂

I think about birthdays, generally, and wonder how many people miss the opportunity to really celebrate what they are celebrating when they celebrate a birthday; it’s a chance to really encourage and lift someone up, an entire day celebrating their birth, their existence – who they are, that they are, and that we get to share some small portion of their journey. Do I pause long enough in a busy day to really honor  the qualities someone brings to my experience when I observe the anniversary of their birth? When I select a birthday gift, whether something specifically requested, or some whim or inspiration, am I doing so from the perspective of truly adding value to their experience in some way, or truly celebrating some quality they have – or seek? Or am I stopping by a retailer at the last minute to grab something that I hope is loosely related to some interest or another that has been expressed at some point in recent recollection? Maybe it doesn’t matter… but maybe it does? Maybe that varies with the individual, too. Certainly, it enhances my own experience of celebrating someone’s birthday to put thought and consideration into who they are, and what we’re really celebrating, when I shop for a birthday.

I can't afford luxury cars or jet planes, but I offer a warm welcome into my life, my home, and my experience. <3

I can’t afford luxury cars or jet planes, but I offer a warm welcome into my life, my home, and my experience. ❤

I spent yesterday in a lot of pain. Today isn’t much better. Medication helps, but just takes the edge off and lets me work. I’m not bitching – I don’t even think I am in any certain way in more pain than other people my age, in my condition. I just don’t know, maybe everyone hurts exactly this much all the time? Pain still sucks. I remind myself to be kind today; it’s hard to see who is in pain, or how much pain – and pain sometimes results in people being… well… very human. I can trust that there’s no particular risk of being too kind. I hurt today too; it will be worthwhile to make a point of also being kind – and my kindness will include how I treat myself. 🙂

So excited! :-D

So excited! 😀

Pain? It’s a thing – but it won’t stop me from celebrating my partner’s birthday. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

You Say It’s Your Birthday…

December 27, 2014 //
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Someone dear to me has a birthday today. (Happy Birthday!) More than one friend, love, associate, colleague, or family member have birthdays during the winter holiday season, sometime between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Statistically, it would be stranger if none of them did. I rather like celebrating these birthdays; each person a unique individual, with a different need/desire to celebrate – and different aesthetics and traditions for celebrating. How delightful my entire holiday season were filled with these individual days…the calendar could roll from one to the next day over day… Jen’s Day, Jo’s Day, John’s Day, Sean’s Day, Tyler’s Day, Michael’s Day, Lisa’s Day, Stephanie’s Day, Rhi’s Day…mixed in with the ‘bigger’ holidays and given full measure of celebration and meaning! Each of the people dear to me are worth celebrating, at least I find them so, myself. I hope they find joy in celebrating their experience of self, it seems important.

When I celebrate my own birthday, I like it to be ‘about me’ in a rather literal way. I like to spend the day with friends and loves, doing what I like to do utterly unapologetically, sharing those experiences with people who matter to me – who are willing to share the moment because I have value for them, and the relationship is worth taking that time to participate in some activity that might not be their first choice, any other day of the year. We celebrate me, that one day each year. I tend to celebrate everyone’s birthday that way, if I know it is their birthday, just by deferring to their preferences when the opportunity to do so arises. Seems an easy enough way to say ‘I value you’ by saying ‘let’s do it your way’.

I know people who don’t actually celebrate their birthday. I don’t know that it is truly significant or has any meaning beyond what it is. The more I enjoy me, the more I want to really celebrate my birthday…and to do so beyond gifts, parties, or elaborate plans; I want to celebrate simply by being me, quite comfortably so, and really delighting in what I have to offer myself. Seems a little funny to take a special day to do that, though; I am sure I could do it every day, in every mindful moment, quite as easily.

Like a butterfly; a birthday celebrates the growth of an entire year.

Metamorphosis; a birthday celebrates the growth of an entire year.

Verbs and choices… Perspective. Words matter. Happy Birthday. I hope you celebrate you. 🙂

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Categories Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

New and Improved

June 12, 2014 //
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Well, or something like that; it’s my birthday. I make rather a big deal of some of them, less so of others, this one has been a strange wobbly roller coaster ride of achievement, change and the passage of time.  51 isn’t generally one of the ‘milestone birthdays’.  51 isn’t even cool enough to be a prime number birthday. It’s just… a year older than 50. 🙂

To be fair, 50 kicked ass in so many ways, how could 51 really challenge it on the very first day? So, we’ll keep things simple; dinner after I get home from work, a restaurant I like and consider a bit of a treat, and near enough to home that it won’t be a ludicrously late night. Sleep matters to my well-being and good cognition; 50 taught me a lot. I reached greedily for change, and learned a lot about choice, will, and love. I spent much of the year deeply invested in study and growth, and standing on the doorstep of 51, I feel a sense of purpose, and find that I have goals of my own that matter enough to build my life around them, to make my choices consistent with those desires on a daily basis, and to be willing to lean on those goals a little bit now and then and say ‘hey, I missed the mark here, I’d like to do this one differently…’. The occasional ‘course correction’ or adjustment in everyday trajectory feels less disruptive than it once did, generally. I am, overall, less stressed out, generally less confused, mostly more chill, and rarely deeply unhappy – only briefly, now and then.  It’s been a good year for change.

So…here I am. 51. As with most birthdays, it really doesn’t feel any different than 50 did, yesterday.  I’m okay with that.  Every day is a new experience, and it isn’t about age. Age and aging just don’t seem to be the Very Big Deal people so often make them out to be.  Yesterday I enjoyed a video that proves that point.  I’ve started hiking again, myself. I still work in my garden. I manage about 5 miles a day on foot during the week and yoga every day.  I feel pretty good, in spite of pain.  I feel strong and capable. Hell, I feel more beautiful at 51 than I felt at 20, and the photographs support that, mostly because the pained and tense, vaguely angry look on my face at 20 was off-putting, to say the least. At 51, I am smiling, joyful, and generally delighted with life and love. 51 is a very nice place to be in life.

Here’s to life and love and 51! Today is a good day to celebrate life. Today is a good day to enjoy love and work and growth and the small delights that keep things fun. Today is a good day to enjoy the world.

Where will my path take me?

Where will my path take me?

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words
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