Birthdays

Do you ever feel like you are watching someone in a movie, riding the elevator up to their obligatory job, trudging through their day, going through their menial tasks? And you start to feel really bad for them - like you want to make them a cup of tea with a large dollop of honey and tell them to, "Perk up already. This is your life!" And then you realize that you are watching yourself...

Does that ever happen to you? It happened to me this past weekend - my birthday weekend. 

Is it just me, or are birthdays always emotion-filled, expectation-ridden, and a little bit depressing?

I guess this is because it's the "new years" of your life, and you are faced with the task of evaluating who is important to you, who cares about you in return, how far you have come in the past year, and where you are going. You immediately feel the pull to do something "AMAZING" to really kick things off and set the tone for what's to come. But somehow, my definition of amazing was defined by what I thought others would think was amazing... or based on a hazy idea of an amazing time I once had?... I'm still trying to figure it out.

While it was great to dance on a table, yell "this is my jam!" after every other song, and drink as much as I did in college, none of that is really how I, in my authentic state, define amazing. What is really amazing to me is a great, ass-kicking workout; a delicious brunch starring some organic eggs; a warm, timeless day at the beach; getting lost on a hike through a dense forest; a night in with my girlfriends; redoing my vision board; listening to a quirky audio book; a cozy alfresco homemade dinner by candlelight. Why didn't any of THAT come to mind when I was planning my birthday?

Is it about appearances? Did I think that what I like to do isn't interesting enough? Fun enough? Am I still stuck in the awkward high school phase where I would take a puff of a Djarum around my friends so that I wasn't just the prudish straight-A student who hoarded after-school club titles and gold stars?  It can't be about that... because I am morbidly embarrassed at the thought of any stranger witnessing me on the night of my birthday and summing me up with the only information available: booty shaking, vodka shotting, table dancing birthday girl who wanted nothing more than to spend her special night like this... I mean what the HECK? No wonder why I felt so disconnected from my spirit and desperate to leave by the end of the night. I'm not that person. I don't enjoy doing the things that that person was doing. 

Ok, you get it. I feel regretful and saddened that I chose to go there on my birthday. I look back at that night like a bad dream... like I was kidnapped from my centered, self-aware place and thrown into the Hunger Games as an insecure, bar-crawling, attention-craving 21 year old. 

But I'm trying to be kind to myself. I took the next two days to reflect and just be with the real me. I did the things that the real me loves to do... I went to the movies, I did my yoga, I tried a Pilates class, I grocery shopped and made a healthy dinner, I spent time with my kitties, and I sat in the sun. I feel revived and I am slowing learning to forgive myself and to let go of the judgement. It's a slow climb, but writing this has, at the very least, helped me to laugh at myself and start to shake it off. 

OH WELL! Right? The people who I most care about (and who care about me) know the real me. And I lived to tell the tale. Dusting myself off and getting a move on...

Thanks for reading my confessional. :)