I Say I'ts My Birthday!!!!!!

Today is my birthday. When you are younger, having a birthday marks the time in your life when you get to do things you weren’t able to do before. When you are 6, you get to go to school. When you are 16, you get to drive, get a ob, date.. many things. When you are 21 you get to drink… or maybe you did that when you were 18, depending on when you were born.

As you get older, though, things can shift. I hear a lot of my friends referring to the things they can no longer do…. Like stay up all night. Or drink all night… or do other things all night.

They can’t run as fast or as far or see as well and all kinds of things. And that seems like the top of a long hill slide down to me if you start thinking that way.

A good friend of mine gave me a card today that read almost like a book, it was so full of wisdom and positive ideas. I think that is something else that should happen when you get older instead of those cards with coffins and black balloons and wrinkly old ladies pictured on the front. You should get wonderful. uplifting cards that celebrate your life like it’s still 1999. I digress. Anyway this card talks about all the new things and possibilities that are available to me since life will be continuing. It reminds me that life is an ever evolving story that I am writing. And this is all true.

For me though, today, I am thinking about Thanksgiving. Not the day we have in November. But a true day of Thanksgiving.

First of all, I am thankful that I am celebrating a new birthday.

I am thankful my mother had me. She had other options.

I am thankful that I had a childhood in a southern, small town, growing up much like how Truman Capote depicted life in the “Grass Harp”. Colorful, eccentric characters that left me wondering what was going to happen next, almost ever moment of my short and much enjoyed childhood.

I am thankful for being the only girl in a neighborhood of boys. It made me understand much about power and control and being fearless and daring, very early in life – and how much fun it is to be that way. And if you have a choice, getting dirty is the best choice.

I am thankful that my parents divorced and my mother brought me to Dallas. At the time, it caused me great pain and grief, but the wisdom of hindsight allows me to see that I never would have been happy or grown in the way I did in that eccentric family that I so loved as a child. I would never have realized my full self in that small southern town. Even now, my family back there doesn’t get me. So I’m glad to visit, but I’m glad to come home.


I am thankful for my first love in high school. He gave me another important but very painful lesson in life. Love is not enough. It is the start and foundation. It took many more people and many more lessons for this to be a complete picture for me. But this was my first step.

I am thankful for all the men in my life – my father, my uncles, my cousins, my boyfriends, my husbands, my friends and my professional peers. Each one of them taught me something. Some taught me from a position of love, others from a position of power, and even others from a position of careless, self centeredness. Maybe I was dense and that is why it took so many lessons but I am grateful for each one.

I am especially thankful for the father of my son. He was the first man to see me as powerful and as his equal and to treat me as such. I never accepted anything less than that afterwards.

I am thankful for my woman friends now. Women did not play a large part of my life early on. When I was younger, I didn’t have many female friends. I did not know how to relate them and they didn’t know how to relate to me. With age, women finally learn that we always have a common bond – we’re smarter than people think and we are under appreciated (grin – just joking). Actually, after we have raised our kids, we finally have time for ourselves and that is when we can fully appreciate other women AND be able to make time for one another. I love my “sister women friends” and don’t know how I did without them before.

I am thankful for my son. He reminds me of who I was and who I continue to be.

I am thankful for my daughter. She reminds me of who I was and who I continue to be, unfortunately though, in some very less than positive ways. Young female power vs. older female power is not always a pretty sight. My mom remembers when I was on the other side of the fence. I hear her mumbling something like, “You pay for your raising.” I still don’t’ get what that means.

I am thankful for my husband. He’s the longest relationship I have ever had romantically and spiritually. It’s not been easy for me to be with one person and I feel bad for him. I’m not an easy person period. But he reminds me of what commitment and integrity mean and why they are important when other characteristics get week and threaten to fail you. It’s why you don’t go to sleep mad at night and why you don’t forget to hold hands.

Bottom line, when you consider the alternative, I am thankful to be alive. So thank you for your good wishes. I look forward to them again, and again and again. And if you have a chance tonight, raise a glass and drink to me and drink to you. And say a prayer of thanksgiving.