Birthdays . . . a mixed bag of frosting!

Make A Wish!

Birthdays are the best of times and the worst of times. Like the holidays they can make us very aware of who is around us (or not) and where we are in life vs where we thought we would be. I've spent them blissful, in love with a commitment and a confession from a crush, and I've spent them crying, once on all fours in a doctor's office that didn't take my insurance with my whole purse contents spilled across the floor right after being betrayed by a friend. year 34, I don't miss you at all. It's 10 years later now so that gives perspective.

I had a very laid back birthday this year. It was mostly lovely. . . but I don't prefer laid back. Had a fun little movie night in our backyard and movie snacks. I liked it. I want to go on a trip. I want lobster and sailboats and leaf-peeping and pumpkins.

The Addams Family in the backyard

Looking back through a camera roll for all of these birthdays, you see these circular patterns that help to understand our own psyches. I realize that my favorite birthdays are either themed or traveling. . . Ideally with some fall thrown in. Often just friends somewhere cool for dinner and or drinks. I love to host but maybe not on my birthday when I just want to vibe.

I made a little slideshow about the last 13 birthdays I celebrated. It made me very aware that I miss a few times and places that don't exist in the same way anymore. The little house we moved out of in Altadena burned down in the wildfires. It has gotten even more expensive and dangerous there, and we left almost 5 years ago now. It's a weird in between now. Most of the neighborhood burned down. People got married, broke up, moved, and had babies etc. in my circles that orbited when we were young and mostly single or coupled up but still prioritized fun more.

Harry Potter themed PARTY 2015

We don't want to move back to LA, but nothing has been quite right since we left. We didn't really want to leave, but the pandemic changed our California experience and we had to make a move. I'm still looking for my 'Tiffany's' or my 'Stars Hollow.’ I have found magic in each layover city anyhow. And so much love.

I miss times with circles of friends that eventually broke up for whatever reason. Just moments in time altered by life circumstances, but man did we have something in those moments. So wild, free, fun, and alive. Drinking whiskey from the bottle and running across wet grass with someone you know will break your heart one day, but your connection is so fierce you don't care. I feel like Taylor's Cruel Summer was about me amongst other songs.

My little birthday Ennui is a little like mourning the fleeting nature of happiness, while also being grateful for having been in the right place at the right time being so happy often right before empires fell. For seeing the fleeting beauty and connecting so deeply with some beautiful souls.

I'm in the middle of my life. I care a LOT less about a lot of things than I used to, but I can't stand injustice or liars. I get why middle aged people are cranky now. A lot of it is hormones. It really is like a second adolescence.

The 2023 Savannah Birthday Trip

I still crave adventure, but rest is more enticing than it used to be. I have the knowledge that I've lived a very full life and the keen nagging feeling I'm not living up to my potential. The deadlines can't be 'someday' anymore. Time feels faster and less compassionate.

Like everyone I have things that haunt me as well as a lot I'm very proud of. There are a few things I try to recalculate in my head like a proof. . The math never really maths, but I have some really weird and vivid dreams. Subconcious me wants to make things right.

I have that annoying feeling that I'm in a new chapter and I don't know what's coming next this time. I'm tired. Still ambitious, but so tired. That's one thing about getting older, you have to pay attention to your health more and it takes up a lot of time and resources. It's boring. Still I have 4 patches on today. Dopamine, NDT, Unpuff, and The one that supresses appetite. GLP the pink one. It's like the care bears of health in skin sticker form. I'm tired of having to ice my knee I twisted in Charlotte. Ugh let's pretend to be 35. Maybe my body will believe me.

Last year in NYC is the kind of birthday I like best . . . new places, adventures with my husband. A little curated. Good Coffee. It was chef's kiss.

NYC was a personal best for birthday trips.

I'm getting to know 44 year old me. I feel like I was just 31. Like a year ago. Weird.

I'm gonna embrace the things that make me feel at home and whole and right in my own skin more. Release the need to be liked or understood. To stand in my own power. To wear my biggest sunglasses and caftans sometimes. To entertain. To make more money (Help Me I'm Poor). To find a way to do more of what I love and less of what I don't. To say yes thank you to lovely things. To put in more effort for the things I enjoy. Buying the good martini olives with the blue cheese.

Smaller things feel like magic. We're rewatching Gilmore girls in bed and Lorelei's birthday episode just happened to fall on my birthday. My Luke (My husband Syd) yells at the TV about the same stuff. It's nice. Syd is a really good man. I'm so happy he found me right as I decided to be an eccentric solo traveling witchy woman who stayed single and took lovers or something. Finding lasting love in LA feels like an accomplishment.

You start to realize that people were mean to you about are also your best bits. My moving a lot has made me resiliant and somewhat fearless. Sort of. I still have a little PTSD after our haunted house and time in Georgia. I don't like talking about it. (Shudder). My adhd makes me bubbly and innovative. I need that because I can get melancholy and emo in a fainting couch sort of way. Most of the people who called me crazy in my life were men that did me dirty and took zero accountability for their own behavior. So that's something. . . It's nice to know better now.

My flamboyance is mine and I'm confident enough not to let the boring muggles dirty looks or insults or jealousy get me down if I have a bold red lip on or a more daring ensemble. I don't care if incels on the internet call me fat or ugly or old. I'm at peace with exactly who I am and where I am in life. Even my body wherever it is that day.

I have had the life of a showgirl in a lot of ways (for real) and Imma keep on dancing at the pink pony club if you know what I mean.

You just keep on loving who you love and try to keep yourself on that list too. Buy too many throw pillows and live a little or a lot. Read. Re-evaluate here and there and make adjustments. Keep trying to hydrate somehow.

Grieve when you need to and write new chapters like eras of your iconic self not like an apology to a society that wasn't really built for you.

We can only be fiercly ourselves if we want our lives to be our own. Let them say at my funeral she was so 'herself' and let that have inspired others to be themselves too. Unapologetically.

People can hate you for no good reason, but you don't have to care! If you are 'too much' they can go find less!

I also won't apologize for getting some things on a deeper level. There are places, and people, and things, and music that we vibe with more than others. That's ok. No need to rain on anyone's parade (or vote against their human rights.) I think variety is the spice of life but I get to choose what to season my food and life with.

When we create or recreate lives we actually like, It all feels a whole lot like sovereignty if not pockets of love and happiness, or at least art.

So happy birthday to me (Yesterday on October 13th) and to anyone who took the time to read this lil blog. I hope you have such a gorgeous next chapter regardless of how you struggle now.

X0X0.

-Megan

13 years of birthdays!