How do you celebrate your birthday? How do you FEEL as it approaches?
Are you aging yourself due to your beliefs?
Some people have a fear of getting older, they fear slowing down especially if they have been known to be the life of the party “back in the day.”
Some people are taken aback when they catch a sincere look in a mirror and discover lines and folds that magically appeared overnight.
Some people go all out, excessive drinking and partying, excited, and proud of a year well spent.
Some become recluses.
There are some who take drastic measures to appear younger, nipping, plumping, and tucking while others embrace the “silvers” and crow’s feet.
If you shifted a bit, could you see crow’s feet as a visual sign that you were accustomed to smiling and laughing all your life? How pleasant.
I’ve started enjoying my birthday again. I was severely disappointed one year--my 40th. Three years of planning got snuffed out because someone else didn’t think I was deserving of such a party.
For some years that followed, I simply wasn’t interested. The people in my household felt put out to do anything that would benefit JUST me as if they were ruling if I was worthy of the year just spent.
Every year I was asked what I wanted, but I received something completely different, more passive-aggressive validation of their “ruling.”
If I couldn’t enjoy my special day within my own household, einh, you become aloof to it all.
Years later, I started hosting my own birthday parties and made my own cakes. Why not?
Genetics has a hand in “aging well,” but so does improving mental and physical well- being for future benefit.
If you want to feel young, then do so.
Age/title (being a mom, grandma) shouldn’t solely determine your lifestyle.
With age comes wisdom, so most of us know and understand responsibility, choices, social appropriateness, and couth. Most of us...
However, I think we are conditioned to fall back on the negative. We use “at my age, I can’t...” to finish lots of sentences and limit ourselves.
Every time I went to this one club, I saw a little old man, easily in his upper eighties, dressed in a sharp white suit, and dancing in front of the live band to the best of his ability. I was pretty sure he wasn’t familiar with most of the music but did he care? Could he have been in bed another weekend, drinking tea, and making it through another Ken Follett novel?
I loved his spirit.
When I see people like that, I’m inspired.
What wonderful zest!
I’m fully aware of my age, my body changes, and good grief how far away to I have to hold a box to read the instructions? LOLOLOLOL. I appreciate every year. Some don’t have the luxury of health, of being able to be in a spirit to enjoy life, to have friends to visit, or children.
Birthdays are blessings.
But I will continue to tend to my mental, physical, and social health so I too could be in a Donna Summer jumpsuit in a club when I’m at eighty-eight. Why not, right?
Oh, we'll totally show up differently.
Will you be there? :)
Enjoy.