happy 37th birthday, me

Sitting on the driveway in folding camping chairs the other evening with my neighbor/close friend, watching our children make up some game with a hula hoop, a Barbie bike, and the half-blind cat, she said something that got me thinking:

"You're everything you were six years ago when I met you, but better. You're the same. But you're something completely different."

Hmmm...

I know she meant it as a compliment. And I took it as one. I've even blogged about how frequently I feel the same but different. Even look like someone different. But it was weird, to hear it that way. From someone not me. Made even weirder when I happened to pull up one of my random first blog posts circa 2007 to read. Back when I was using the blog as more of a personal daily journal. I read the words and thought, Who is that woman? The one worried about the decorating particulars of her house? The one who spoke in terms of "we" and didn't mean her and her children? The one who sounded fairly sheltered, reserved? (though, I guarantee I've never been that way--just more guarded about revealing my kookiness and vulnerabilities than I am now.)

There are still lines I walk regularly:

*Feeling blessed to feel so comfortable in my single-ness / Feeling scared to feel so comfortable in my single-ness.

*Happy to be so content alone / Worried that, were my kids gone, no one would find me if I died until I started to stink. And that my cat would probably eat me.

*Humbly proud of the recognition my accomplishments, writing, and ideas receive / Worried that I'm getting too busy accomplishing and  losing myself in what I do and not in who I am. Worried that I am alienating myself from others with my ambitions.

I suppose the jumping back and forth between those various emotions is what has created this 'something completely different' of a me, that really isn't something different at all--but just me, being me in a different situation than I ever have before. Not really changed, simply more tolerant and expressive of the woman I've been all along. Even from girlhood. It's been the same voice in my head. The (mostly) same things I'm drawn to. The same way of approaching life and problems. Of loving people, without question. The same spirit inhabiting my body. Just getting wiser, more perfected, is all. I think this is what it is, to grow old.

So, this is me--teetering just days before my 37th birthday. I'm still the same person I was at 36, 35, 30, 28, 17, 12, 7. All the years just compound on top of each other. And the cakes become increasingly more flame than frosting.

I am throwing myself a big, cheap, but spectacular party. Again. I look forward to it every year. It feels good to see and involve friends, to celebrate myself in a way I can share with them. So it's more like a giant party for all of us, not just me. 

I'm also going back to California, where I've managed to go about this time every year for the last 4 years. Like a birthday sabbatical. It's a good place, a peaceful and reflective place. With food. And salt air. And sand to stick my feet in. And a hug waiting.

Happy Birthday, Me. I'm glad you're still you. And something completely different, too.