oh yes, I was once this cute (like the 126 camera square print?)

I keep thinking, while the calendar says I’m 39 today, what it really means is I’ve finished 39 years on the planet, beginning my 40th.

Then I gasp, and stifle it.  Heh.  I’m not afraid, but this was the first year I found a couple grays around my hairline, so I’m gonna cross that bridge when I come to it a year from now.  Well, I’ll probably strut.  The kids in the hall always told me I had a tendency to strut.

My sweetheart reminded me last night, “it’s time to start thinking about yourself, honey.”  And without losing a beat, I said, “I know, and that’s what I’m doing now.”  I didn’t feel coy, or shy, or timid.  It was this strange unfamiliar feeling that’s been infiltrating me lately.  Word on the streets is they call it “confidence”.  Hmm.

Last night I thought about how I’ve changed the way I work, and how I work, and who I work with, and finally realized I’m feeling that awesome feeling – equilibrium.  Not that I don’t stress out about something inane every day, but I know this – it always works out as it should.  I thought about how a couple of important decisions to be made sat on my lap in the last month or two, and I made them, trusting my gut that I did deserve what I thought I deserve.

That may sound easy to some, but when she sang “when you open up your mouth to speak, could you be a little weak”, it really hit home.  (PS – this was published today.  Rock on, HC.)  People telling me and other women I know that we needed to be nicer, sweeter, more cooperative, less abrasive, less DISRUPTIVE.  

Fuck that.  I know who I am.

And there you go, folks.  There is me on a stick, me at thirty nine years of age.  Cannonballing into this world and learning to really, truly, genuinely enjoy the ride.  Now it’s time to go eat a luscious breakfast, get an amazing massage, have an afternoon of doing whatever I damn well please, and then finishing off the night as I do every year, with friends I adore.  THESE are the days.

Man am I grateful I’m here today.  May you all be as well.

Time may change me, but I can’t trace time.
~ David Bowie

me these days