It’s my birthday today. I’m turning 32. It’s crazy how fast life goes by, and how you just keep going and not even noticing changes in yourself or that you’re growing up more and more every year. Changes happen so subtly, they just become you. Then every once in a while, I take a real look at myself, who I am now and I realize that I’ve grown in a lot of ways.
For example. I like myself. I like who I am. For a really big chunk of my life I wasn’t really able to say that, but I can now. I wish I could say that I have some big decisive secret to being happy with who I am, quirks and all, but truthfully, I don’t think it’s something I decided to do. I think life gave me some really hard lessons over the last several years and that perspective sort of changed me, helped me see that disliking who I fundamentally am was a big fat waste of time, and my brain has bigger more important things to consider, way outside of myself. And it’s just now occurred to me as I write this, that all that energy I spent feeling self-conscious and being insecure, was really just kind of self-centered.
I also like my body. I used to loathe it. I used to feel so annoyed by my stubby legs, and my lack of height and how dang flat my chest is. How I have no curves whatsoever, even after I’ve had five babies, how my arms are naturally thick and my cheeks naturally full. My. Frizzy. Hair. But I love those things about me now. They’re no different than they were a few years ago. (okay, my chest is a little flatter.– thank you, nursing four babies) My mom used to tell me that every woman had her own beauty. She could see it, and the older I got I could see it in others, but I struggled to see it in myself. I don’t know when that changed but I can see it now, my own version of beautiful. I like my big rabbit teeth, they make my smile look really happy. And my unruly hair, is thick and always full and it’s really fun to wear curled. I like my breasts. They’re tiny, just so so tiny, but they are all mine. I earned my flat chest, and my husband loves it, so why do I care if I don’t look like a supermodel.
I used to be so paranoid about people not liking me. Especially people saying nasty things about me on the internet for all the world to read. I felt so horrible the first time I read something nasty someone had written about me online. It made me feel small and ridiculous and so vulnerable. It made me doubt myself. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t like me, and then– even worse, I couldn’t understand why anyone did like me. Maybe everything they were saying was true, maybe… But I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t worry about it, at all. I never thought I would get to that point, but there it is, and I feel like that’s a big accomplishment, although I can’t say that I actually did anything to get here.
Life, I give the credit to life again. Because life for me, for the last few years has been really really hard. My parents got divorced, I buried a baby, we moved 4 times in 3 years, my husband spent months working on a project out of state, and I’ve had more stress than I thought I was capable of handling. And, just to be real, running a business and being a mom is really, really hard for me.
And even though I like myself now, not all the changes in me have been positive. The space inside my head hasn’t been a comfortable place for a long time. I’ve always had a tendency towards anxiety, but this year, it became a whole different animal. Choking, life altering, debilitating anxiety. It’s humbled me. It’s put me in my place. It’s taught me so much, and also, nothing at all, if that makes any sense. I still struggle with it, every single morning. I wake up and it’s there. It’s made it easier to let go of the silly things I used to worry about, like my body or people liking me, and somehow, simultaneously made functioning through my life and the big grown-up decisions I have to make every day feel impossible.
It’s taught me to cling to God, my Savior, my husband, and my family. It’s given me compassion. It’s made me less judgmental. These are good things, and I’m grateful that I’ve learned them. But if I woke up tomorrow and it was gone forever, I wouldn’t mind it, no not one bit.
A birthday is such a personal thing, and I guess being older, I’m finally comfortable admitting that I don’t have it all figured out. That my life is a messy too, and my heart has deep scars, that I worry too much. This is who I am. Frizzy-haired, flat chested and a little crazy.
I’m comfortable with that.
Happy Birthday to me.
:-)
Jeans: Hudson. Sweater: Target. Button-up: Loft. (similar.) Shoes: similar. Necklace: JCrew. (similar.)
More great comfy sweaters to get you through the chilly months and they’re all on sale ;-).
