Aug 16, 2010

Tomorrow is my birthday and I've been trying to figure out a gift I can give myself.

I know this sounds like a strange thing to say, but in a year in which I have had, on various levels, a hard time emotionally, it strikes me that the chasm of happiness has mostly evolved from events in which I have failed to love myself well enough and wise enough.

Don't get me wrong. When I say it has been a hard year I not giving proper credit to the joy and achievement associated with such "difficulty"
Since I last saw a birthday I have gotten engaged, bought a house, and managed to turn an awe inspiring mountain of unsecured debt into a reasonable mortgage and a tiny credit card bill. I have lost a decent amount of weight. I have gotten back in decent shape.

I am in love, I am well homed and fed and full of potential.

And yet, somewhere in the process I stopped loving myself, and loving life as I should...
I have become driven by the notion that I might just be failing myself, in the very ways that count.
Does that sound right? Does that sound possible? That such reasonable acts of self love and self care would yield this realization?

I can't explain it myself and so the only reasonable explanation I can come up with, at a moments thought, is that I have only started to notice the things I do to inhibit my own happiness and to survive instead of thrive now that I have cleared away some of the crap that was obscuring my view.

I liken it to cleaning my house only to uncover the scratches and water stains and to discover I haven't been doing such a good job of taking care of the things I love.

And so I want to start this new year off, my next year of existence, finding ways to not just amuse myself, but to love myself.
But I don't know where to start.

Other than with a list of what I want, and perhaps, time and circumstance will lead me towards my needs if I acknowledge what they are:

I want more close friends and less meandering acquaintances. I want to connect more and mingle less. I want to form bonds that help me relax, endow me with inspiration, comfort me with joy.

I want to eat more great food and drink good drink. But I want to eat less and drink less. And Enjoy both by the contrast.

I want to move. Well and happily. I want to internalize a force that makes my body's kinetic design a joy and not a frustration.

I want to look in the mirror and think I am beautiful, and not a hair above acceptable. I want less compromise and more acceptance. I want to look in the mirror less.
I want to look at others more.

I want to create one thing that can share just a piece of what is the real me, and not simply my assortments of tics and habits and mechanisms. I want to create.

I want to live more with my spirit and less with my ego, and I hope this will make me a better friend and lover.

This is the what. The difficult part is the how.

4 comments:

fox confessor said...

This is beautiful. Happy Birthday!

Emily said...

yes! I love your birthday manifesto.

Also, I think you should start the year with a vacation day. :O

rif said...

Happy birthday! I don't have any real advice, but I hope you have a great year.

Snowcap said...

This was so beautiful, and heartbreaking too. Give yourself half the nurturing you give to those of us who love you, and you'll be pretty damn well-nurtured. Happy birthday, indomitable Daff!