{"id":64,"date":"2007-08-16T05:48:05","date_gmt":"2007-08-16T12:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromthefrontporch.com\/WPBlog\/?p=64"},"modified":"2023-09-18T12:20:33","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T19:20:33","slug":"its-my-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/2007\/08\/its-my-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s my birthday!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is my birthday – I am 52 \u2013 not one of the milestone birthdays\u2026and I\u2019m not thinking about it in any other way than it\u2019s my birthday \u2013 my day to \u2013 to what? Well, it always feels a little special, but generally, I don\u2019t \u201cdo\u201d anything different except maybe allow myself to have whatever food or drink treat I would like \u2026 because after all, \u201cIt\u2019s MY birthday\u201d!<\/font><\/p>\n

There is a blog that I check once or twice a week: Karen Cheng\u2019s Snippets of Life<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>Karen just turned 29 \u2013 she wrote about it.\u00a0 <\/span>She lives in Australia with her husband and 2 young sons.\u00a0 <\/span>They have a house.\u00a0 <\/span>Karen works from home on some web projects but primarily she is taking care of her family.\u00a0 <\/span>I have very little in common with her \u2013 only the bit of technology interest\/skill.\u00a0 <\/span>I just enjoy the peek into her life and thoughts.\u00a0 <\/span>So, after her 29th<\/sup> birthday \u2013 facing next year\u2019s 30th<\/sup> \u2013 she shared some of the thoughts and questions she has about turning 30 as in \u201cthe big THREE-O\u201d \u2013 and then she invited the sharing of stories from her \u201creaders\u201d.<\/font><\/p>\n

Getting older, aging, the NUMBER \u2013 I\u2019ve thought about it a lot!… 30, then 40, then 50 \u2013 my gosh, 50!\u00a0 <\/span>Even if 60 is the new 40, there is not really any denying that 50 is \u201cmiddle age\u201d \u2013 I am no longer \u201cyoung\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t know where the exact line is but I do think that 50 is across it!\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t feel\u00a0 <\/span>50 \u2013 there are many times that I don\u2019t even feel like a grown up \u2013 just a \u201ckid\u201d masquerading as a grownup.\u00a0 <\/span>How did I get to BE 50 \u2013 well \u00a0<\/span>52 years old?<\/font><\/p>\n

Karen asked some questions that she hoped someone might answer \u2013 one is \u201cWhat finally made you feel 30?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Tough for me to answer because I STILL don\u2019t feel 30!\u00a0 <\/span>I remember sitting across the table from a friend\u2019s aunt and mother one morning and we were all casually talking about age.\u00a0 <\/span>My friend\u2019s aunt who was in her late 60\u2019s, wrinkly, white-haired, moving a bit slow, commented that she still felt like a kid inside and every morning when she looked in the mirror it shocked her \u2013 \u2018Who is that old woman?\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I think of that often, especially first glance in my own morning mirror.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m not wrinkly or white haired (a bunch of gray, though!) and often get mistaken for much younger than I am.\u00a0 <\/span>But I can see the changes \u2013 my face has certainly softened, widened, plenty of fine lines \u2013 I catch a glance in the mirror and wonder, \u201cWho is that woman?\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

\"Me\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I neither wear nor have interest in \u201cyouthful\u201d fashion.\u00a0 <\/span>I am energetic and athletic and move easily and well but 20-30 something women look very young to me. \u00a0<\/span>I AM older and sense that.\u00a0 <\/span>But I sense and feel it more in terms of experience and maturity \u2013 a different outlook, pace, sense of self and well-being \u2013 a calmness.<\/font><\/p>\n

And I have to laugh at myself because the maturity is more along the lines of the realization that I DON\u2019T know what \u201cIT\u201d is all about. \u00a0<\/span>The REAL evidence of \u201ccoming of age\u201d for me \u00a0<\/span>is a sense of contentment.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Oh – there are plenty of things I want to do, places I want to see or see again, character improvements I\u2019d like to make \u2013 no less hopes and dreams than when I was younger, but I\u2019m not so anxious about them.\u00a0 <\/span>It is not as if the completion of any of them must be done to make my life good or successful.\u00a0 I’m free to enjoy “today”.<\/font><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve made conscious choices about where I live, how I live, my work, my family and I\u2019m happy with those choices.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve tried things \u2013 some have gone well and some have not.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t like to fail, but I\u2019m not afraid of failing \u2013 I\u2019m more afraid of fear keeping me from trying something.\u00a0 <\/span>I LIVE my life in the way that is right for me \u2013 right for my beliefs and my character.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t believe life is predestined but I do believe that things unfold as they should and that we are given always what we need even if not all that we want.\u00a0 <\/span>I have learned to live with insecurity and in fact to understand that we cannot attain real security and so have reached a point where I can enjoy myself and my days in spite of life\u2019s circumstances at any given moment.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I am content.\u00a0 <\/span>The number has ceased to be important.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is my birthday – I am 52 \u2013 not one of the milestone birthdays\u2026and I\u2019m not thinking about it in any other way than it\u2019s my birthday \u2013 my day to \u2013 to what? Well, it always feels a little special, but generally, I don\u2019t \u201cdo\u201d anything different except maybe allow myself to have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-front-porch-musings"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22516,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions\/22516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}