It’s my birthday and I’ll smile if I want to…

I had a lot to say even then.

When I was in my teens [as many of us us did], I thought anyone over the age of 35 was ancient. Yet today at the age of 55 I don’t feel ancient at all. Well…most of the time.

To celebrate I am going to share some things with you. Things I may not have already mentioned…at least I don’t remember mentioning them.

1. I am an incurable romantic. I grew up always wanting to be in love and perhaps more importantly wanting someone to be in love with me. These days it is more important to me to be in love with myself.
2. The biggest love of my early years was a jerk of the biggest type. The night I met him he swept me off my feet. Forgetting to mention that he already had a girlfriend. When she arrived at the party he promptly broke of their romance. The next morning at the beach he left it up to her to dump me. She did. But she did it with so much kindness and charity we became friends. Although we live with an ocean between us we still have contact on Facebook.
3. I met the only man I have married, and intend to marry, [once really was enough for me] in a hotel in South Africa where the bath plugs were kept locked in a safe and handed out as you needed them.
4. Climbing Mt Kilimanjaro was one of the most difficult things I have achieved. I lost a toenail because of it, that has never come right. So I guess I carry a permanent mark from that. I actually kind of like that idea. I do not remember ever being that cold in my entire life as I was up on the peak watching the sunrise.
5. I really only knew my mother for three and a bit years. When she died six days after my twelfth birthday I felt robbed. I turned that feeling into a rage for many years as I grew up. Funny though, the rage was actually directed at her. I was angry that she had not been there. It took many years to learn an important fact. She was doing things the only way she knew at the time. Once I understood that fact I was able to love her again.
6. In April this year I celebrated living in Katikati for 20 years. I have never lived that long in one place my entire life.
7. I think it is finally time for me to move on. So…this spring I plan to finish repairs and tidy everything up for the real estate market.
8. I hope that by this time next year I will be living in Napier, down on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. When we first moved to NZ we lived there for a few months. Our plan was to own an orchard [apples] there. My ex was colorblind. I mean really, really colour blind. He saw the world as if he was watching a black and white TV. You need to be able to see the blush on an apple to know when to harvest. Hence our move to Katikati and into kiwifruit.
9. The hardest part of leaving my marriage was leaving my mother-in-law. I knew that when I walked out it would mean the end to that relationship. My ex was very protective of what he thought belonged to him. There are times I still miss her. She was, and I assume still is, a lovely, funny and very generous woman.
10. In the beginning of 2010 I weighed over 100 kilos. Due to many reasons, the fact that I was very immobile for many years after breaking my back, the drugs I had to take for the pain that I now understand affected my liver, making it sluggish and unable to do its job, the bad diet I had adopted through this period and the sense of self that I had lost during this period that left me feeling like a big fat nothing so I figured it was okay to look how I felt.
11. Having high blood pressure and a high cholesterol count was the best thing that could have happened to me. I completely changed the way I ate and how I looked at food. Cooking became an adventure again. Out went all processed foods, well except for sugar in my tea and coffee. I cooked everything from scratch or I didn’t eat it.
12. One day some months in to this new eating regime [that is the wrong word…it sounds so strict…maybe lifestyle instead] I realised that my clothes were becoming loose. I never once during this period used the word ‘diet’. I did not go in to it with the intention of losing weight, but to get healthy. I found two wonderful side effects though. One…I was losing weight. Two…I was enjoying life again.
13. During the last years before and up to 2010 I avoided clothes shops. Dressing rooms were where I cried the most when item after item made me feel worse. I wore mainly sweat pants and bulky jumpers.
14. When I finally tried on something fitting for the first time I cried again. This time with joy because I didn’t feel like a beached whale when I looked in the mirror. Don’t get me wrong. I do not believe that being slim is the only way to be beautiful. I know some gorgeous bigger ladies, and I despise the way society pushes people to think thin is the way to be. I hate the way to often our concept of our worth is tied to how we look. But I was able to do things that for a long time had been difficult for me again.
15. I became a vegetarian about a year ago. I could no longer eat anything that has feelings. Part of that also came about because New Zealand factory farms many of its animals. This practise enrages me to a point of fury. Animals confined in cages that make it impossible to move freely. Often force fed so that they experience nine months growth in six weeks and are unable to move, then slaughtered. Bobby calves taken from their dairy producing mothers within a day of birth and slaughtered. So I determined not to be a part of this chain of cruelty.
16. Next Tuesday I will have finished my 30 day detox. Yep people…I am almost there. It has been surprisingly easier than I thought. I plan to keep on doing much of what I have been this last month. Dairy is likely to be a thing of the past…mainly because of those bobby calves but also because I don’t actually miss it as much as I thought I would. I am irrevocably in love with coconut milk and coconut oil now.
17. I have never been to either the ballet or an opera. These two things are on my to do list for the coming year. Any suggestions of what would be a good opera to see for the first time would be greatly appreciated. Swan Lake is the ballet I am going to see…next week. One of Katikati’s young stars is appearing in it so that makes it even more special.
18. I hope to finally finish THE BOOK within the next twelve months. I lost my mojo for a while…then with the computers being stolen I lost it completely…but I am back in to it now. Wish me luck.
19. I would love to do pet photography. I hope that maybe there will be an opportunity when I move to Napier to do it and maybe make a living at the same time.
20. I love the fact that I am now 55 !!! It means I am still alive and I consider that a privilege. People should stop whining about growing old. The older I get the better life gets…or maybe I have just chilled out enough to really enjoy it.

For more info about me read the following – which will be added to as the mood strikes.

100 Things – little bits of me so you can get to know me and my journey though life a little better.

20 more things – more little bits

20 more things #2 – well this can and will go on for a while.

20 more things #3 – like I said, get yourself settled.

My Younger Days – a slideshow from when I didn’t mind a camera pointed at me.

My top 10 favourite dance scenes – I love dance scenes in movies – GOOD dance scenes. They make me feel good. Simple really. These ones, they make me really feel good.

Another update about me – my top 25 favourite movies.

Laminated List – ahhh…yes. We all have them. Only some of us admit to it. These guys are mine. Yuuummmyyyy.

Bucket List…mine – the first 30 on my bucket list (I’ll add more as I remember them – hmmm…that’s worrying.)

Music to feed my soul – those musicians that make my hair stand up straight, curl about, dance really.

♫ Can you see what I see ?? ♫ – “My – Who I would bring back to…list.”

And just a few more ME posts…

Alone is not the same as lonely

The Letter.

Colin Arthur Bryant and the third child.

Questions, questions, questions…

Just a few facts…

Heads up people…it’s my birthday

The art of pirate tagging

Saturday’s Child

Laughter and dancing because I can.

I’m a mother – above all other things.

47 Days and counting…

Happy birthday to me !!!!

p.s.

Please hop over and visit Jon…it is his birthday today too and he always gets in a funk he told me once. Leave him a message to smile about.