From the other side of 45

I've never been big on celebrating my birthday.  It's usually just an excuse to buy myself something and eat a good meal with plenty of sweets.  At some point after I turned 40, I began referring to it as my one year closer to death day.  For real, the aging process can be brutal.  I always looked so young for my age, and I hated it because who wants a parent to think your friends are babysitting you.  Yes, that happened in high school.  More than once.  When I turned 21, my entrance into clubs/bars was delayed as bouncers double then triple checked my ID.  When I graduated from college, people thought I was graduating from high school.

I was blessed with good genetics.  My mamaw has skin smoother than plenty of women 25 years younger, and people are surprised to hear my mom's age.  When the girls were little, strangers sometimes thought they were my mom's children, not grandchildren.  But genetics can only go so far.  For many, many years, I squinted instead of just wearing my stupid 1980s glasses.  Now I'm left with those furrowed brow lines between my eyes.  After Abigail died, I feel like I aged an incredible amount in just one year alone.  Grief leaves physical marks.  And then there was the strain of carrying triplets.  "Let's stay cautiously optimistic."  Yeah, no stress there.    

With the focus on social media and the ever increasing scrutiny of one's physical appearance, I have to take a step back sometimes and think about the big picture, what is truly important in life.  Sure, I could go out and get botox but wouldn't I then be a hypocrite?  I have three impressionable girls who have been taught that looks are not as important as what's inside.  What would I be teaching them with botox and fillers?  We're all going to age.  We're all going to look older at some point.  This is life.

This year, I decided to look at the positive and celebrate being here another year.  Let's celebrate life.  (Sadly, Luke Perry passed away the morning of my birthday.)  And let's look at the good that comes with age.  We are wiser.  And I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly don't care what others think.  I'm not sure I ever really did, and now I really do not.

Whenever one of the girls grumbles over having to share her birthday, I always tell them how I "share" a birthday with one of my brothers.  Technically, we don't share the same birthday (he was born a year and two days after I was) but growing up, we had joint birthday parties and always shared a cake.  About a week or so after my birthday this year, I was looking for something in the basement and found this photo.

I showed it to Allie as proof of the shared birthday cake, even as adults.  She told me it most definitely wasn't the same because:

1. He's a different gender.
2. There's only one of him.
3. I had one year to myself. (As if I remember it, haha.)
4. Our actual birthdays aren't on the same exact day.

Okay, okay.  You win.