LOOK OUT ‘CAUSE HERE I COME.

Twenty one October, my birthday, my day!  I’ve always been so excited about it and celebrations usually started a week before and carried on long after the day ended. 

As you grow older birthdays don’t instill the same amount of joy and excitement as they used to.  It rather becomes a starting point, a kick-off for thoughts and reflections.  It’s so easy to torture ourselves about the things age has changed, the things life has taken away and the things lost along the way.  It’s so easy to look at the face staring back at you in the mirror and feel kind of “sad” and disappointed. 

I don’t want to wake up one day and realise that although I was alive, I never really lived.  I don’t want to wake up when it is too late, when the show is finished, and the stage is empty.

Living a life and being present and alive is something we all want and strive towards but it’s very clear that it looks different for different people.  It’s obvious that what makes me feel alive and gives me purpose in life is not the same as for others. 

And so, the journey is very personal.

And it’s this constant back and forth every now and then, reflecting on the past and trying to tell ourselves what we want to change and do different in the future.

What we need to do and change to “be alive” “to feel alive”.

But at the end it remains our responsibility to keep it alive, to keep our lives alive.  A very personal responsibility.

I want to love life, live it to the fullest and embrace every opportunity.  I want to be me, even more than ever.  It’s an ongoing topic in my journey, one I’ve struggled with when I was younger but embracing more as I grow older.

I’ve been captured lately by the following phrase from the song “This is me” by Keala Settle.

I am brave, I am bruisedI am who I'm meant to be, this is meLook out 'cause here I comeAnd I'm marching on to the beat I drumI'm not scared to be seenI make no apologies, this is me

As part of my journey, I realised that one can only live and be present if you embrace who you are, be who you are. 

Not who the world tells you to be or pressurises you to be.  A life lived as someone else leads to lonely roads and empty destinations.  It starts off exhilarating, but it soon wears off and you feel empty.  You soon question life and the purpose thereof, you soon feel as if you are not living because yes, you are not. 

You are somewhere hidden, living in the shadow of the persona the world pressurised you to create.  You never lived your life, you lived someone else’s.

And so, part of my journey and my next year leading to my forties I want to live a life with me as the main character. 

I want to live a life where I can like and love the things I like and love.  

A life where I do and wear what I enjoy.

A life where I can be silly and quirky.

A weirdo if I can.

I want to live my life, to the fullest with me as the main character reminding myself every day that:

I am brave, I am bruisedI am who I'm meant to be, this is me

I’m not scared to be seenI make no apologies, this is me