Maybe it is age, but I totally look at birthdays differently now.
A birthday is my measuring stick, my ruler, my yardstick.
Parties are not necessary. Instead, quiet solitude is my gift. My treat.
I am 53 and still can feel the texture of the rubber kick balls we used in elementary school. I can still picture the Tastee Freeze that my grandfather and I stopped at every Friday on the way home from kindergarten. I can still hear the birch tree branches rubbing against the window in the home where I grew up. I can hear the wind on a winter's night howling through my front bedroom window and picture the ice on it in the morning. I can still smell my Mamaw's house and imagine the creeks from the steps going up to my great grand mother's house. I can see my mom in the kitchen, talking on the phone and see my brother sitting in his tip in rock watching speed racer.
It seems like yesterday I lived on Fayette Street in Morgantown, WV. Or on Mallard Drive in Camp Hill, Or Whitehall Drive in Mechanicsburg, Pa. Pehlam Road or Cameron Blvd, SC.
Where has the time gone? The years?
When I was younger I had a vision of how my life would be. And where I would be at 53.
I thought I was so wise, so together, so mature.
Even today I wonder "if I get it?". The goods new about being in your 50's is that you don't care as ,much as you used to...seriously, you don't.
I thought I would own a radio station and live in a row home, that had tons of charm and quaintness, in the city with a porch with lots of potted containers. I would travel a ton and take my nieces and nephews on vacations. I would be super in shape and volunteer.
And there you have it, it wasn't supposed to be that way at all.
Now, I wish I lived on a farm, in the middle of no where. I wish I could walk outside, naked, and hang my clothes on the clothes line...with pigs and chickens. A kitchen with a big old farm sink and vintage table clothes.
Instead I have a vintage table runner on my kitchen table and if I went outside naked, there are neighbors and I would be arrested.
Funny, just when you think you have it all figured out, life gets in the way.
And, I wouldn't have it any other way. My birthday gift to myself every year is that I am living the life I was supposed to live. I appreciate what I have and accept what I do not have.
Honestly, I think that is the case for most of the people I know.
So, take a day, measure your life, enjoy whatever makes you smile.
Happy Birthday to us all.
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