I'm Still Here - Birthday

In 11 days I will be celebrating my 40th birthday...

My birthday is really important to me, more so now then when I was a kid.
I truly believe that I've been living on borrowed time...there's 3 times in my life that I've either flat-lined or been close to dying or the doctors didn't know how I was still alive let alone conscious.

So to me each year is a gift - it's probably why I love so intensely, so fully and why I just take the moments to experience everything I can... from taking a moment to appreciate the cloudiness of the day before walking into the house...to standing in the rain and smiling...literally stopping to smell the flowers when I can...listening to the silence of the night...watching a bug crawl by...feeling - everything.

Overall I am happy with my life, and happy to have it - I'm glad I it wasn't taken from me when I had tried to end it before.

Lately my happiness hasn't been shown outwardly enough for some - I'm really not all bouncy, giggly, and all laughs when I'm happy. I'm much more introspective now. Obviously I laugh or smile at jokes, I just don't feel the need to be goofy to show happiness. Maybe that's me just getting old...lol

I know there's a lot of people out there who just don't care about their birthdays, my father is one of them, and I get that. It's not about presents to me it's about presence. I want to spend my day with people who truly care that I'm alive, that appreciate my presence in their lives, that care that I am still walking this big ball of dirt - with people I love very much.

It's been a struggle, a fight, at times a massive war to get to 40...there's been trauma, abuse of all kinds, medical issues, heart breaks, anxiety, depression, deaths... so you're damn right I'm going to celebrate still being here...I just wish those I love would be too.