Sunday, January 28, 2007

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Yesterday was my 47th birthday.

I love having birthdays. I love having a day where I am honored just for being brought into this world. I don't mean to imply that my family isn't good to me all the time but your birthday is ... your day.

Complete strangers send you email birthday cards. Pepsi sent me one and I don't even like Pepsi. I had about 25 birthday email cards yesterday from websites I have visited. But hey, it's my day and the world knows it.

I get phone calls from family member's (my in-laws) that I don't hear from any other time of the year unless I call them.

We always take the family out to dinner, last night we ordered Oklahoma Joes B-B-Q (yummy) and had everyone over. Of course we had cake afterwards. My daughter's work and school schedules were too crazy to go out to eat but this worked well.

And gifts, my youngest daughter bought me a beautiful bouquet of tulips and my oldest got me a brick of bees wax (for my crafts) and the neatest journal.... it has questions about my childhood and growing up years that I am to respond to and then give her the journal back. She said that she gave one to her dad and my mother. Neither of whom have returned theirs. Her dad passed away 3 years ago from ALS and his little wifey-poo returned the journal still in the plastic wrap to her. I have already started working on mine.

I have never had any "traumatic" age crisis birthdays. To me age is a state of mind. I have been on this earth for 47 years but I certainly don't feel as if I am closing in on a half century of age. What does age feel like anyway?

I have barbie knees, when I get down on the floor and then stand up my knees sound like when you bend the knees on a barbie doll. I do have some aches and pains. Menopause has set in. BUT, I cannot get pregnant, my kids are out of diapers and can feed themselves (18 & 28), I am happy with what I do for a living, I adore my husband and he feels the same about me even after 20 years. I still look pretty good even though I am a bit more Rubenesque, I have always taken care of my skin (soap has rarely touched my face, I make my own cleanser and cream) so I don't have any horrible lines and wrinkles.

Women get too bogged down with age. I wear my few character lines proudly, I have earned them. No botox or plastic surgery for me thank you. I actually think that an almost 50 year old woman who artificially looks like a 20 year old looks rather ridiculous. In my humble opinion if you are not proud of your age and wear it like a badge of honor then you have a huge self-esteem issue and your age is the least of your problems.

Be healthy, be happy and raise great children.