+1 to my age tomorrow

It's my birthday tomorrow. Normally I don't attach much significance to this particular day, it being but a milestone that repeats itself annually, but somehow I am compelled to acknowledge it this year, as I have last year.

I will have to admit that this year is more personally significant than last. I had a fabulous birthday party, planned by my Hubby, attended by my dearest friends, but it was significant in a numbers-game kinda way.

This year, I really do feel that I've had an eventful past twelve months, and there is hope again that such a year may be repeated many more times. This is the type of feeling - of anticipation of more to come - that makes children look forward to each passing birthday. It is, sadly, something that I have not felt anywhere in my younger adult life, perhaps because I was young and angry and naive, and did not have the courage to deport negative elements from my life.

Ella told me, quite offhandedly the other day, that I had become more wholesome and mellow as Hubby's courtship had progressed, and even more so when we got married. Now with the arrival of little Bean, she feels that she has seen me evolve into something more over the time that we have known each other.

This is precisely the reason why I attach so much significance to tomorrow. I think I feel that *I* have changed. In some fundamental way, I have become a new edition of myself - and this has happened gradually, with my full awareness that SOMETHING was different, yet I cannot recall now what the actual diferences are.

There's something to be said about squandering one's youth, not that I'm currently yet ancient. I've certainly done and said a lot of things in the past decade which were careless if not decadent (careless, rather than carefree, seems to describe it better). There was a sense of anxious nervousness. A sort of restless energy that beset me all the time, without my even knowing what it was that I was seeking.

All that seems to have receded into the past, anchoring me now in far more certainty, strength, and clarity than before. "Where I once was lost, I now am found"? Does that seem fair to say?

And to borrow an oft-used phrase, I don't sweat the small stuff so much anymore. I still get angry, don't get me wrong, but that seething redness has given way to something altogether more piercing and directed.

Another noticeable thing - I've lost the crazy passionate wantonness of my emotions. I remember being able to love so fiercely that it really *does* hurt. Now it too has been replaced. Not with something less, but I can only describe it as being able to CARE more, and give more of myself freely without fear or expectation.

Or perhaps, I'm just getting old.... ;)

Comments

[shellbell]

Happy belated birthday dear friend. It makes me smile to see how you've become happier and happier each year - and its true, I noticed alot of changes when you starting dating this one.

Wishing you many many years of joy and beautiful sunrises and sunsets.