my birthday...

So yesterday was my birthday... my last birthday as a non-parent...
It was a day of appreciating my dear friends and family. My wonderful parents looked after me so well, they worked all day helping me prepare the house for the new kitchen... my mum fussed over me and spoiled me with love... my dad slaved over painting my new gorgeous baby-bath table on wheels that he built me :-) and all day my phone beeped and buzzed with dozens of messages, calls and loving thoughts from my dear friends. And then later in the evening two of my dear local friends joined with my mum and dad and I in a delicious meal. Laughter flowed freely, jokes and stories of life, films, world events, travel...It was all just lovely! I don't think I have ever appreciated friendship and family more.
And once again I learned a valuable lesson. There was one person whose birthday call was conspicuously absent... and I cried my heart out dismally... It took me until the end of the day to put things in perspective and notice that I had let one person bring me down so much - and make me feel so unloved - in the obvious face of the waterfalls of love that surrounded me from every other direction. Birthdays bring out the most sensitive and vulnerable parts of me I think... its a time when everything is more intense... when I most need to feel loved and valued. As such, I have never really looked forward to birthdays - they are such "tender-hooks" days... days of fearing what might go wrong and be upsetting, days of hoping for something special to make the day stand out from all of the rest.
But now it is over and I am 37.... I know that I am because my passport says so... what does 37 feel like? Too young to really know what I am doing, but too old to feel like I can afford to not know anymore. Too young to have to take responsibility for the whole picture of my life at one time, but too old to ignore the challenging parts of it anymore. Too young to have half of my life over already - and too old to want to be young again.
So this year I make some pacts with myself....

This year I am going to find a balance between being compassionate and understanding towards others and accepting and excusing their crap because they are "confused, mixed up, dealing with their own issues".

This year I am going to start putting my own needs first - because I finally realise that most people don't notice or rarely appreciate me attempting to put them first, whereas witnessing me valuing my own needs gives them permission to do the same.

This year I am going to try and consistently model the kinds of behaviours and attitudes that I want my child to learn and develop... Self respect, dignity, integrity and more...

This year I am going to stop telling people what they want to hear at the cost of my own self respect, I am going to stop accepting what others say at the cost of my own dignity, and stop bending myself in knots to please others at the cost of my own integrity.

This year is going to be about my child and I... living the life I choose, based on the values that I uphold and on the things that inspire me and add to my sense of myself as a good and worthwhile person in the world.

This year I am going to be ruthless in protecting myself from anything or anyone who does not add positive value to my life.

These are my most important goals for my 37th year.