Forgive me, it's been a while. I am starting this post at about 11:25 on January 17th and it will be one that will be overindulgent on feelings and just me in general. My birthday starts in 35 minutes, which is part of the reason I am still awake after a mentally challenging day.
I love my birthday, I try not to since I guess that is the appropriate thing to do but as Lizzie called me earlier, I am a Birthday Diva. There have been some I have been really sick for (the plague of having a birthday that falls shortly after school starts again), some not so great ones, and some that I have spent exactly how I wanted to.
I love the nice little things that people are kind enough to do for me, having little cousins sing happy birthday, the phone calls, the personal messages, the cakes and the time people take out of their day to acknowledge it.
I have been reflecting on the last year, trying to figure out if I really accomplished anything. I have a part time job that I love and I feel like I am making at least a small difference there. I don't know if my friendships have gotten weaker or stronger from the changing distances that have been increasingly cemented over the last year. There is still so much uncertainty and a lot of me still feels very stuck and unchanging. It's hard to be the one who doesn't seem to change when everything else around you is.
I planned as full a day as I could for tomorrow because I know I will need to keep myself distracted from the one thing that really changed this year. January 18, 2012 was the last time I was able to see one of my favorite people ever alive and fairly well. My grandmother passed away less than a week after my birthday and I had gone to see her in the hospital. Everyone who knows me well knew what a rough blow this was and a year later, it's a little easier to talk about but I miss her everyday and think of her through all the little habits she taught me. She had great joy in using her rewards card at the end a grocery check out rather than the start because she loved watching the price drop and seeing her couponing success. She was the original extreme couponer.
So tomorrow, I will be a huge Birthday Diva, and that's just the way it's going to be.
