Good morning my darlings, how was your weekend?
It’s a Monday morning and I’m actually in a good mood. I KNOW.
There are many things contributing to this. The fact that I’m not at work. The fact that the sun has come out (and about time too). The fact that someone has just brought me a stack of pancakes, soaked in maple syrup, and an Oreo milkshake (which I just had my first sip of and oh baby is it good).
Oh and it’s my birthday hence all of the above (yeah, I'm arrogant enough to assume that the sun has come out because it's my birthday).
I refuse to go to work on my birthday, a bit like a child refusing to go to school amidst a tantrum. Nah uh, not happening pal. I don’t necessarily need to have big plans, I just find it depressing to work on my birthday. I like to acknowledge it happening and to do that, I don’t want it to feel like just any old day. This year, in particular, I knew I couldn’t go crazy with celebrations on my actual birthday. For starters, there’s only so crazy you can go on a Monday in the middle of February. But mainly because G and I a) went out for the most amazing nine course tasting menu meal at the weekend to celebrate both my birthday and our anniversary and b) have booked a helicopter ride in New York (!) as our birthday presents to each other. Fair to say we’re already going pretty crazy.
So today is a chilled one. I didn’t get out of bed until about 10 and it was lovely to wake up to birthday messages from my favourite people. I had a phonecall with my mum and step-dad and then discovered a big happy birthday balloon in the living room, left by G before he headed to work this morning. This made me happier than is probably normal but I love a balloon soooo…
I’ve taken myself off to The Pudding Stop for a spot of writing (with milkshake and pancakes of course) and then I have a massage booked at midday. An HOUR LONG massage. I’m already doing all the heart eyed emojis. I don’t have any specific plans for the afternoon but I think it’s probably going to involve some baking whilst listening to the La La Land soundtrack and then maybe binge watching something on Netflix without feeling guilty that I should be doing something more productive cos EFF OFF IT’S MY BIRTHDAY. And then hopefully by then, G will be home and I can open my cards and presents and order a take away.
As people get older, there seems to be a tendency to see it as a bad thing, and focus on things they haven’t done yet. But I’ve been spending most of the morning thinking of all the things I have achieved so far. I’ve decided that 15-year-old me would do a little excited sick down herself if she saw where I was now. 15 wasn’t a great year for me and I wish I could go back and tell her girl, you’re living in St Albans. You would LOVE your little flat. You spend a lot of your spare time sitting in cafes typing away. You’re paid to edit NHS guidelines. You have a week-long holiday to New York booked. You’re in a long-term relationship with the best guy (I know I’m biased but he did just buy you a birthday balloon so I think that proves my point).
Just typing that out made me feel light and free, and I’ve realised that I probably need to do this more often. When I’m having (mostly daft) moments where I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing or that I’m somehow failing or that I should have achieved more by now; I need to look at my life through the eyes of 15-year-old me. Cos 15-year-old me would probably hate me in those moments. She’d look at me like ‘what the actual fuck are you talking about?! LOOK AT YOU BITCH!’ and she’d be bloody right. There’s a lot of pressure coming from all directions at this time of life and I think it’s very easy to compare yourself to others or feel like you’re not doing that great or wonder why you haven’t achieved your dream yet. But there’s so much life ahead of us and we have to be patient. If we spend all of this time of life comparing ourselves to others, and constantly putting ourselves down, then we’ll end up not enjoying the here and now. And I suspect that this is a pretty good time of life to be in.
Actually, I know it is. There’s Oreo milkshakes for crying out loud.
Enjoy your day you sassy thing you. And don’t forget how awesome you are.
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