Yesterday was my birthday.
It was full of delightful moments, over-flowing champagne, joyful company and a ton of gifts. The day was magnanimous to say the least. I am completely tickled pink with joy.
That's what you're supposed to say right?
I'm gonna level with you - it wasn't anything like that at all.
You generally have a ritual of how your birthday begins. For me it's being woken with a stolen kiss and a whispered "Happy Birthday my love.." while having gifts lovingly laid by my side. Then it's a 7:30am birthday call from Mum, a delicious breakfast cooked by my love followed by texts, messages and calls from loved ones wishing me a beautiful day.
NONE OF THAT HAPPENED.
Scott went to work at 5:45am, Mum facebooked me happy birthday not wanting to wake me on the phone, I opened my presents by myself, had to go to a meeting, no one at work wished me happy birthday - or even knew it was my birthday - and everyone I came across was in an 'off' mood.
It was a blow to the ego that's for sure.
All that kept running through my mind was, "This sucks".
I wanted to escape to a new reality where I had a beautiful party to host with my favourite people, and a dessert table adorned with pretty decorations. I imagined waltzing off to the beach where we spent hours splashing around, soaking up the sun, sipping cocktails and eating food that was made for the gods.
It felt good to escape for those few minutes, it felt fresh and new and fun - and that's when it hit me square between the eyes.
It felt good because it felt new.
"That's it!" I thought to myself, I've been so (unconsciously) stuck in the same place for quite a number of months now, nothing new has happened. In other words, I haven't been growing.
I immediately course-corrected my attitude, because I knew what I needed to do. Life is about growth and change and sometimes we get stuck because it's comfortable or because it freaks us out to do things differently.
I'm not saying everything will change in a matter of minutes, but there's 365 days to go till my next birthday and I'm going to make it a magical year of firsts, or, a year of growth.
And once I made my mind up, it was like everything slotted into place. I arrived home after work with my favourite people waiting for me, we snuck off to get vietnamese, watched our childhood classics, Jumanji and Space Jam, gobbled french birthday cake and trumpets.
None of it is what usually pans out on my birthday, it was all brand new, the perfect start to an exciting purposeful year.
Bring on the year of firsts!
Elise xo
Image from A Beautiful Mess
I know this is an old post, but I hadn't read it before.
ReplyDeleteI vow never to work on my birthday ever again. I'm 31 now and I've worked my birthday once in my life I think I was about your age now. It sucked. So now I always take the day off on my birthday. Even if I spend it alone, I spend the day relaxing, eating my favourite foods and then have dinner somewhere nice with family or friends in the evening. It's just one day a year. Celebrate yourself :)
This is a good idea Genie. No work on B-Day. I like it! Ima do it!
ReplyDeleteI find it a little disappointing people aren't more excited or even happy about their birthday or about doing something - even if it's something small like dinner wtih loved ones. I don't think I have worked on my birthday - maybe once and it was nice cos it was a nice group of workmates - quite possibly the best even though we were all different ages. But I definitely second your motion - birthday days off~
ReplyDelete