Happy Birthday To Me.....

Today is my forty-fifth birthday.

Wait...let me write that again....

TODAY IS MY FORTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY

I feel ancient.  No....I feel ancient and depressed.

Yes, I know that it is much better than the alternative, but that doesn't make it any better.

I can tell you that when I was a teenager, I didn't think that I'd make it to forty, much less forty-five.  Y2K  was supposed to be the end of the world, remember?  Well, we didn't call it that way back then, but whatever.

I was only 33 during Y2K so I was safe.

And now, I'm 45.

I had so much I wanted to accomplish by now:

I'd be ready to retire from my Nat-Geo job to focus on my writing career. That something else we didn't do...call National Geographic "Nat-Geo." but I thought I'd hip it up for you and any other Gen-Y'ers who happen to be reading this. At any rate, I'd be ready to retire from the job that in actuality, I never pursued.  I'm a big chicken. Things were tumultuous in the world at the time I was in college. Suddenly schleping all over the world on the razor's edge of danger no longer seemed appealing.

I'd be a Pulitzer prize winning journalist.
Or at least in the running.

I'd have published several novels.
I cant even start one.  Oh I have great ideas for novels, several of them. Getting them from my head down to paper is another story indeed. But who am I kidding. I can't even get people to read my blog.

I'd be obscenely weathy.
I'm just happy to get all the bills paid. Between Darling Hubby and the kids, that's a stretch. I'm First Natioal Bank of Joy.

I'd  have a great New York loft apartment.
I learned long ago they are far more expensive than the movies let on. I'd settle for paying off a house with a decent sized closet. Oh hell....let's just focus on paying off the house.

I'd be wildly famous and make all of my classmates jealous.
So much for that. I can name 10 classmates right now that are doing so much better than me that I'm jealous.

I'd be married to someone wildly famous and make all of my (female) classmates jealous.
But I'm not....not even close. Darling Hubby is merely younger than me.

Instead, here I am, looking back over a wasted life.

I let other squash my dreams. I let people (even those close to me) stomp all over my dreams. My grandmother, for example, never misses an opportunity to laugh at me or poke fun at me. She's always been critical of me. She tells me how special/beautiful/talented other people are, but has never once commented on how special/beautiful/ talented I was. She's one of the people who should be lifting me up. Her words have been an anchor all of my life. I've wasted a lifetime trying to make her proud of just one thing that I've done. Maybe it's that generation.  Who knows?

Fear cements your feet to the ground. Fear that you will try and fail, fear that you will not measure up, fear that you are worthless.

If I never teach my children another thing, it will be this: Dont give into fear. Push the envelope. Pursue your dream, regardless of what people will say about it. Drink in life all around you and hold your cup out for more.

NEVER GROW OLD