Had my birthday recently. 48. Bah.
I don’t get the whole birthday celebration thing as an adult. As a kid, birthday is #2 to Christmas for hedonism, and even in my 20s and 30s it was a great excuse to party.
Then my 40s came along. Here are two images from that fateful event:
The picture of me with the cocktail is from a party we had for my birthday. I was not quite at my heaviest at the time, but I was pretty close. I have successfully lost and kept off 50+ pounds since then.
The picture on the left is my favorite photo from a vacation we took for my birthday to New Orleans. Yes, this is a picture of a cemetery – the famous one near the French Quarter, which we toured.
A woman’s life expectancy in the US is around 80 years, so at 40, I was halfway done with my life – a life which has been wasted quite a bit. Not entirely wasted – I mean, I feel I did some important work when I was a journalist years ago – but still I feel the pull of the undone more than the pull of the done, and the “good enough” mocks me, often.
At that time in my life, overweight and unhappy, I felt I needed to make many major changes to my health. I did – and I keep doing. A big change is to stop celebrating with food and drink all the time. Don’t get me wrong – I love to eat and drink – I just feel like I can’t anymore. The stupor of excess really bugs me at a time when I want to do so many other things.
My husband asked me what I wanted, so I asked him to cook a nice healthy dinner. And I want to relax, so that’s what I am doing today, working on a sewing project a bit and taking a break from all my obligations.
Tomorrow, birthday over, I will be a normal mortal again. And I’m OK with that.
