Honestly, I felt a little down and anxious about my birthday 🙈.
I turned 37 this morning (Czechia time) at a friend’s house in Toronto, Canada.
In the weeks leading up to this day, I frantically hopped from one spa to another, trying to salve my newly acned skin and some more wrinkles. Then it was my hair. Can it get even grayer? Yes, it can—unless I dye it and use other treatments even to keep it on my head!
Stress is a killer.
Physical aging aside, the spiritual and material ones seemed harder to swallow.
I still operate by avoiding childhood trauma triggers, keeping a nomadic lifestyle, and comparing myself to family people of my - or younger - age.👨👩👧👦
Dear Jesus, can you please change me so I can finally fit the status quo this year?
All these thoughts - should have, could have, and must be different now - party-pooping in my head. 💩
On the inside, I felt like an insecure 137-year-old child. Do you know what I mean?
Thankfully…
On the eve of my birthday, I reconnected with my friend Lee from Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
She hosted a backyard party full of beautiful, mature people.
Nobody was forcing me to drink (it’s your birthday, bottoms up!), and others drank only decently. The food was gourmet, and the conversations were interesting. No one in their twenties there!
I particularly admired one woman’s extra-long and strong natural grey hair 👩🦳 . It’s no secret that it completely regenerates once you stop using chemicals on hair. Another 60-year-old recovered her sight by putting her spectacles down for good and ‘making herself see better.’
Later, we all went down to the Jazz Street Festival 🎺 . I let loose with the last life-of-the-party ladies to a Guayanan Jazz band. I realized that Lee was in her mid-fifties, her friend S. was of similar age, my gorgeous friend K. was turning 48 this year, and our new friend with a baby face was supposedly 43. I was still the youngest and most depressed about age there!
We were childless, obsessed with travel, and enjoying our freedom. Selfish to those who can’t do these things.
Looking around, other people only swayed from side to side, but we shook the booties like there was no tomorrow. We sure were the queens of the party 💃🏻 . And the party was over by 11 pm so us oldies could go to bed! 🛌
What the hell was I fretting about weeks earlier? I’m not in my twenties, but it’s more than okay!
Getting older can be great.
We win the game of life as long as we have friends, humor, assertiveness about who we are and are not, music to dance to, and some beauty sleep. 💆🏻♀️
Happy birthdays, my lions and lionesses! 🦁
With Love,
Pavlina
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