Folks, it's that one post when this blog's focus is on Me.

That title amuses me so.

Yes, it's that annual time of year. Time for reflection and thankfulness. No, it's not Thanksgiving but some would be saying it is because it is my birthday! So far I've received birthday wishes from TK101 and the Coca Cola Company. How thoughtful of them to think of me. It pays to sign up for newsletters and crap. At least once a year, the computer generated emails are far more personalized.

I'm thirty-five today. Fucking hell! When did that happen? At times I feel the creak of middle age in my back, neck, hips, wrists, and hands. I see my body in the mirror or in pictures and I'm ashamed. Other times, I hear myself speak or giggle at the silliest things and think that I must be lying about my age...I'm just a spry, young thing.

Birthdays in your youth come so slowly and then they start speeding along like a bullet train in Japan. At three and four, you count your half-birthdays. You use your fingers to physically claim your age to any adult who asks, "How old are you?" At ten, you look at body parts wondering when they'll change or grow and are both proud and embarrassed when they do. At sixteen, you hate the world for underestimating your adultness and spend the year contemplating revenge on the masses. At eighteen, you do what you think a person of twenty-one would do. At twenty-one, your cockiness is only matched by your stupidity; and both will show up in pictures that later in life will serve as giddy reminders of how youth is wasted on the young. At twenty-five, the fear starts to set in as you see that youth does escape you and now it's time to make grown-up decisions before you're behind the  pack. At thirty, there's suddenly a peace. You don't know where it came from or that it's well-earned. It's just there. Perhaps it's the realization that thirty is not an age to mess around or take lightly. You are an adult. There's no ifs, ands, or buts.

Then thirty-five comes. Perhaps its those between the decade ages that hits you hard. The regret before the leap into a new age bracket but I'm a little pissed. I may well be at the middle point of my life. If I live another thirty-five years, I'll be seventy years old, which is around the age that most people see the maker of all this spectacular life. I'm pissed because I don't feel like I should be at this milestone yet. No one thinks I look like a woman in her thirties. That's a good thing but hell, I AM.

In five years, I'll be forty years old. My daughter will be seventeen. Five years. I remember when my mother turned forty. I was twenty. That was fifteen years ago. Huh?! Seriously? I'm still trying to get past putting my age up in fingers. I ain't got enough fingers or toes to do that anymore. I have to use that old person's method: Three fingers up on the left hand. Hand forward in purposeful pulse of three. Pull back while fingers prostrate. Five fingers up on the right hand. Hand forward in purposeful pulse of five. Pull back while these fingers bow towards the palm.

I just don't want to be this far along yet because I have so much I haven't accomplished. With age, though comes wisdom. Things on my list to accomplish have changed from those years of mine of frog hunting, hide and seek and chasing little girls with big black ants when they had designs on the boys I liked. I know my talents. I know my strengths. I know the reality of accomplishment. I'm hoping that young of heart feeling inside me will give me the insane bravado that only comes with your younger years. Imagine the partnering of wisdom that is only achieved with age and that damn sprightly living that comes with youth?! Makes for the fear of the approaching forties not so overwhelming.

But still.....

Stupid youth...wasted on the young.

Anyway. In celebration of Nae Day, I hope you all have the youthful courage to accomplish something silly today. Fear not the reprimand of others. Live boldly today and give yourself a shot of your younger years. And always....I wish you all the best as I celebrate my day!

Comments

[Carrie]

Nae, that's deep, my sister. You will always be a spright to me.--live well.

[Missy]

Nae,

I'm right there with you. Time truly flies. Here's hoping you have a lovely birthday!

-M

[Naomi]

Thank you very much. Visited your site and we're just right down the road from each other!

Thanks again.

[She Likes Purple]

Happy Birthday! I will absolutely do something ridiculous today in your honor.