Happy New Years!!!!
It’s not the New Year for you, but it is for me.  Today I turned,,, well, a little bit older.  In my
30s.  I feet great.  I am so happy to be me at this age.  I am so happy to be somewhat
awake and able to know how wonderful it is to be me.  I am just so happy. I love the
people in my life, even the ones I don't yet know all that well, I feel like they are terrific
people.  I love my house, I love my workshop, I love all of my jobs, I love my hair these
days, I love darn near everything.  I even have learned, am learning to love winter!!!

My birthday is like New Years to me.  I like to contemplate on what I did in the past year.  
What have I mastered, what needs more work, what doesn’t really matter.  After the
contemplation, I have a few weeks to think of ways to implement new behavior into my
life before January 1st.

I must say that I have done a lot of good things right in the past year.  I am in such a good
place and you know, I put me there.  Life didn’t happen to me.  I made my life happen.  
How empowering a feeling.

So now that I am a little bit older, I feel strange.  Strange only because, as I was telling my
brother earlier today, my brother who also shares my birthday, how I feel as if I am getting
younger.  I still giggle at farts, I still get excited and my voice reaches that annoying high
pitch as if I am 6 years old.  I still like presents and harass the gift givers to please tell me
what I am getting.  I giggle, I make faces in the mirror when I am alone, sometimes I get
caught and feel embarrassed, cause grown folks don’t do that sort of thing.  I love
cupcakes and watermelon bubble-yum and am really jealous that designers don't make
those cool thick colorful tights that all the little girls are wearing, for adults.

I just feel like a kid who just happens to have to pay bills every month. A kid with a couple
of responsibilities.  But, I feel like a kid.  I look in the mirror and feel like a 30 something year
old should look, I don’t know, more mature?  I still like two cornrolls.  I like ponytails.  Not the
sexy sophisticated type. I like the ones that look like a 5 year olds mom brushed a ponytail
right in the back of my head.  And when I am walking, I know its bouncing like I am a little
puppy.  I don’t care.  I like them.  And, I always go to the hair sections of the drug store to
see if there are any new cool barrettes I just have to have.

I used to say that I don’t care what people think about me.  I was lying.  Not on purpose,
but because, you know, that’s what your supposed to say, supposed to feel.  I did care
what people said and thought of me.  Now, I must admit, I still care a bit, but not that
much.  Say what you want, I am still gonna do me.  Gonna be who I think I am, do what I
think I want to do, and you cannot stop me.  You may have good advice, and I may take
it, after of course I think your advice is dumb and not good for me, and who asked you.  
But more than likely I will go home, think about it, implement your good idea and act like
it was mine.  Don't take it personal.  I do not care anymore when I make mistakes.  How
could I?  I do a bunch of stupid things, still say the wrong thing at the wrong time, opening
the big ol mouth of mine before brain can tell me to stop.  Hey, I know I do it, you telling
me I do it doesn't hurt my feelings at all.  Say what you want.  I know me now.  

I would care if someone said I smell, or that I am still a loud-mouth know it all.  I am still a
know it all, but I don’t want to be loud about it.  I care if you say I was rude or
inconsiderate.  I don't want to be those things and am working diligently on them.  I care if
that's your opinion of me because that is not how I want to represent myself.

But I don’t care if people don’t understand the essence of me.  Hey, I am a complex
entity, only the contemplative or evolved would take the time to bother trying to get to
know me.  That’s okay with me.  Anyway, I am tired of this rant now.  I am not in the mood
for editing, so if there are mistakes, don’t judge me by them, because since I am a little
older now, I really honestly don’t care.

Happy New Years and Birthday to meeeeee!!!!!!!