HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

It is my birthday. I am 35 today.

Can I just crawl back into bed and assume the fetal position?

Today is one of those days, that just stinks. It reminds me of all the time that has passed... and it makes me wonder where all this time has gone and what exactly I have accomplished. I don't feel as though I have gone anywhere in life in the past five years... and I hope I don't feel the same over the next five.

The last five birthdays have been spent pondering on my lack of living.... and just surviving. In fact, I guess that has become my TRADITION (to be said like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof). To spend some time in bed sulking about life.

As far as I have come, and as much as I have spent more and more time 'out of the clouds' in the last year... things still happen... life still goes on that makes me feel like I am in a maze. Every time I think I make a good decision regarding direction, I hit a wall (sometimes hitting that wall hurts worse than other times). On days like today, I feel like I am wandering around in this maze by myself, and even though I attempt to prayerfully consider how to get out, I just keep hitting the walls.

I wonder what I have yet to learn? Why can't I find my way out?

Did you ever see Groundhog Day?

Sometimes I feel like that is my life. I wake up everyday and try to get it right... only to fail and have to try again tomorrow.

I still have so much to learn... so much growing to do... why does it take so long for me? What am I missing?

My girlfriend is going through a divorce... I serve as the dark cloud reminder of what she could become if she is not careful.

• She would like to re-marry. She would like to find someone who loves her. But, then she looks at me, and how unsuccessful I have been in that area... and I think it strikes fear to her very core. It makes her get back down on her knees and pray that she is not like me. That in five years she isn't in a pattern of consistently dating the wrong guys... that somehow end up just causing heartache. I think she will be fine there. She consoles herself with a reminder that SHE wants it. She prays and asks for the Lord to prepare someone for her. Me... well.. whatever. If my Heavenly Father wants me to re-marry.. someone will be put in my path. In the meantime I will pick up the wrong people on that path. Get hurt the same way as the last. Pick up my pieces and move on. Shaking my head that I did it again.... and try to re-focus on the benefits of being single.
• She does not want to become the mother I have become. She recently went to work full-time after working as a full-time mom and entrepreneur for fifteen plus years. She comes home tired, and when the kids' behavior is not too great and she only has energy to respond in an ornery way... she stops. Because she does not want to become me. Tired, ornery and too crabby of a mom 90% of the time.
• Lower standard of what is clean. She has always kept an immaculate home. I kept a clean home that was often cluttered with the kids activities of the day. Now... well I keep a home that is cluttered with the kids' activities of the past week or more. The spiral. She has seen how bad it can get. I think she will always keep herself in check.
• I am a good 15 pounds heavier than I was when Chris passed. And it is only 15 because the scale was down some this morning (Happy Birthday!). I could easily say 20 most the time. But, let's take the little victories in life... 15 it is. She is actually doing well in that area. She is a good 15 pounds thinner than she was before she got the news that her marriage was over. Is it possible to change the way you deal with stress? I eat... Speaking of which... where is my birthday cake?

I am fine, really. Just need to feel as though I am accomplishing something of substance. That I am becoming a great mother... and getting set in a great career... and making a great impact on the world. I want to be a mover and shaker... at least to my children.

Alright... fetal position over. Sulking time over. Time to celebrate 35 blessed years!