Birthdays.... A time to reflect. A time to hit the reset button for another trip around the sun. Most of my birthdays in my adult life have been somewhat mediocre. And after the last two years, I would pray for my birthday reflection next year to be if nothing else, mediocre!
As a child birthdays were always exciting times for me. I share my birthday week with my mother and my sister. We would always have a big family gathering and a giant birthday party with three cakes and tons of presents and lots of love from all the family. I had a great childhood. Lord some days what I wouldn't give to go back in time!
This birthday for me is a major time for reflection. Thanks to good ole Facebook memories, all the years from the past that pop-up on this day reminding me of things, at times, I definitely would prefer not to remember. For me the last six years of awesome birthday celebrations popped up and reminded me what I have lost this year.... Those damn memories sometimes have a tendency to punch you in the gut when you're not expecting them to. I honestly don’t know why I continue to look at them. I guess I like torturing myself. LOL!
The last 365 days have been anything but easy for me. I look back at my memories from last year on this day. I was in Kansas City to see Kenny Chesney at Arrowhead with my fiancé. He bought us sand bar tickets for the show because we both loved Kenny so much and he knew it would be a special birthday for me since it was my first one after my cancer surgeries. My birthday last year was full of celebration and excitement. I had just beat cancer and was finally starting to kind of bounce back from all of the torture that had been put upon my body and mind from earlier in the year. Last year‘s reflection was of grateful gratitude. I felt like I had been given a new lease on life and I was ready to go out there and live it! Little did I know the person in possession of my voodoo doll was not done with me and killed any hopes and dreams of getting back to some kind of normalcy after cancer.
For those of you that don’t know, two weeks after that concert, I was rushed to ICU and put in the hospital for a week with some pancreas problems. Since that day, for the last year, I have been battling the same pancreas problems. Going to doctor after doctor and test after test with no one really being able to figure out why I am sick. The only thing they have come up with is it was either one of the chemo drugs I had taken or one of my surgeries may have caused some trauma. I have had to get sober for the first time in my life. I have had to learn how to eat a totally different way. And for the most part I’ve had to do this alone. Through all of the struggles and challenges and painful events caused by this illness, paired with the cancer journey, I slipped into a deep depression. It was a very dark, emotionally painful time for me. And then to top it off, in May of this year, the man who I thought I would spend the rest of my life with, decided he no longer wanted to be with me. He left. No warning. Just gone. So as you can see the last year has been less than idyllic to say the least!
But this morning as I lay in bed doing my annual birthday reflections I know this for sure…
I am a very strong, independent, amazing woman who has emerged out of the most terrible two years, that I would not wish upon anyone, with yet another year of hope! I am sober, more comfortable with myself than I have ever been in my life, and am learning how to be at peace with everything that has happened to me. I am trying, day by day, to accept these things and not dwell on them. It is hard some days. The mind is an amazing thing that can make you cra cra!! I am grateful I am still alive and I have been given a second chance at life. I know I do not need anything at all except faith and love for myself to be able to make this next trip around the sun the best year I can possibly ever have. This will be the year of "me". Self love and care.
In the last two weeks I’ve taken an amazing trip with two amazing strong single women to Florida. And I have been out dancing, acting crazy and just cutting loose just like I used to…… without alcohol! What... Are you kidding... Yep. Me. Dancing. No booze. That's a first! And the silver lining... No hangover! I’m not going to lie, it is hard. It is so very hard to let yourself feel, to cut loose, and just be yourself in front of people. People are cruel and they judge you. But I have also learned that those same people are the ones who are afraid to let go and cut loose and just be themselves. They have no other way of thinking except to judge you because they are too afraid to see themselves in that light. So they are forgiven.
But if you learn to love yourself enough, you don’t care what anyone else thinks because you know your heart and you know who you are.
I have learned life is an amazing gift that you’re given every single day. I have learned to wake up every morning with gratitude and just live each day as if it was my last. Be crazy, be silly, have fun, live in the moment and just be yourself. Love yourself, because in the end, no one else is going to love you until you learn to love yourself first! I am working on this every single day. I have good days and I have very dark days. But I figure as long as I keep working on it, eventually I will see some light at the end of this VERY long tunnel.
So there you have it.... the birthday musings of a 48-year-old woman who has emerged from the fire and is ready to take this next trip around the sun and try to make it the best year of her life!
