Maybe This Is It?

 Happy Birthday to Me!  52,  time to spend some moments mellowing behind a keyboard and taking stock. It was nice to revisit all the earlier versions of myself contained within the posts previously set down.  There was a comfort in knowing that I had peace at 40.  I remember it as a mixed up jumble of devastating loss and turmoil.  Burying both of my parents by the age of 39, with still so many questions to ask, left me numb and stunted. I had ascended to the top of the family food chain, and was not ready to be sage voice of reason. So maybe it wasn't peace so much as it was paralysis. I'm okay with that. Everything I wrote at 40 still seems to hold true for me.  I want for nothing, so I'm completely happy with what I have.  I think about the movie "As Good As It Gets" often, the notion that acceptance is the only path forward.  

I convinced myself earlier today to put all my thoughts on loneliness and social media into this space.  I was lonely for parts of the day.  Having left social media months ago, this year there would be no constant dings of Happy Birthday!  from Facebook.  There would be some wonderful texts and calls from people and I dearly appreciate that.   But as a person who very rarely acknowledges the birthdays' of others (its random and sporadic)  what do I really expect in return.   Without social media, the happiness pump is gone. Replaced by peaceful internal hum of time and space.  I accept that there will be lulls, and that I am the one to dig myself out of the pits of boredom and procrastination.  

Loyalty is the Fukkin Bomb Ya'll

There's no more savvy, and that's okay.  It was replaced with Savoir-Faire; a more private resilience.  

I'm harder on myself these days,  I keep thinking this stuff filling the white spaces on the page is not nearly as scintillating or elucidating as years past.  But I'm happier now than I've ever been as a private person.  I don't *need* the comfort of a world to heal me.  I just need the people that want to be around me to know I love them.  For the people who fell from my personal orbit: I am grateful for the role you played in my life. I hope I honored you, and please forgive me when I did not live up to your expectations.   

Thank you for today, (tm Benjamin Gibbard)

Ryestar