Marching On

I very publicly, openly dislike my birthday month and my birthday in general. This year is no different, March is just a damn struggle for me. 

My Gentleman Caller (GC for short) seems to think after you’re 12 you only get to celebrate a few big birthdays. For me, each one of the last several felt like it ‘should’ be a big year. You can read about that HERE. 

Last year my ‘party’ was a challenge with the Easter holiday and the axe guy weirdly commented about my fear of commitment, which for a single 33 year old is REALLY UNNECESSARY. 

Last month I read an article about 33 being your “Jesus Year” and how it’s supposed to be this big transformative thing and, honestly, I’ve just been trying to make it through, pay my bills, drink enough water, and sleep. So did I fail this year? Maybe? I know my struggle bus through January with a miserable bout of bronchitis, February with a strained bicep and trying to get through a class goal, and March with its lack of days off has made the last quarter year feel like a blur of work and worry. Does the retrograde the last couple of weeks figure in? Maybe? 

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As usual, I let life get in the way of finishing this post. Well, I got in my own way trying to figure out what I want it to be and things have shifted, significantly since I started it. I had a lovely birthday weekend with dinner, meditation, burgers, Scrabble, naps, a wonderful party with my dear friends thrown by a lovely human that I was dating at the time and now I’m not. The weeks since then have been another blur of things. Baby bunnies to try to save, loss of a family member, the end of a relationship, a pet health scare, scrapping to make a business work. It’s a lot but also not. One of my favorite authors, Gretchen Rubin, often says “the days are long but the years are short.” Maybe that’s it. Maybe birthdays, as much as I want them to be some big milestone, just aren’t that big of a deal. Maybe if we don’t make time to celebrate our growth and changes along the way, when we look back they don’t feel like enough. 

Every year my birthday rolls around and I feel like I’ve failed. At the end of March 31st I was deeply happy...maybe a little drunk. The weeks after felt like everything unraveled and I’m struggling to piece things back together. I put so much pressure on a day to be a snapshot of my life that I lost track of the bigger picture. 

We’ll see what 34 brings but rather than look at the whole, I’m going to focus on being happier in each day.