Puzzle pieces: Happy birthday to me!

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty. - Georges Clemenceau

Well, isn't that fabulous, because I turned 31 this past Monday!

Monday! What a crappy day for a birthday. It was raining cats and dogs. I couldn't really get into the birthday mood until about Wednesday, so of course I had to celebrate for a full week. I always celebrate my birthday for a week. Not a day; a day is not enough celebrating. I see a week as the right amount to properly celebrate a birthday.

In my early twenties, this meant planning lavish parties with limos and lots of friends and several locations to visit. I would spend weeks slaving at the gym and planning my perfect outfit, and take tons of pictures on the big night. I still remember those nights vividly. I'm glad that I have those memories, but that would be a tad bit ridiculous now. So, I have adjusted my wild ways. Ian and I went to a new restaurant in Carmel called the Local Eatery that only buys food from local farms. It is a charming place. Or, as Ian stated, "This place is right up your alley; it's one level above a nap." And he would be right with that statement. I choose that to mean that I appreciate things in a different way now. Five years ago, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy a fresh plate of hummus with savory olives and a stiff drink and call that a birthday. However, now, it is enough to sit next to the man I love and enjoy simple food and drinks together, knowing that I am loved, and celebrate in this way.

However, who am I kidding; that was on Saturday, and I had a lot more birthday in me to celebrate.

My parents stayed for the weekend and we had a lovely time doting over Lauren. Monday night Ian cooked swordfish and crab cakes for me at home from scratch. I lined my pretty cards up and admired them daily. And I shopped myself silly on Friday. So, now I can say that I have fully celebrated my birthday to the fullest. It is done for another year.

Putting all of those things aside, I think of my birthday as the start of my "year." The ugly winter months are behind me, and spring is in full motion. There is more sunlight and I start to feel more alive. I can start running outside and getting a little color to my skin again. I can take Lauren to the park and on long Sunday evening monon strolls. I am at my happiest now, being outside and with summer on the horizon.

I'm reading a fabulous new book, "A Place of Yes" by Bethenny Frankel. I've saved it back as the last gift for myself, and I'm savoring it. In one point in her book, she describes life as a puzzle:

"Everything that happens to you, each experience, each stumble or achievement, is another piece, and the more the puzzle comes together, the more clearly you start to see where the next pieces should go. But nobody would blame you for not knowing where one puzzle piece out of a thousand is supposed to go, when you've only got one corner of the puzzle put together. Be patient. Your life is the puzzle, and it's fun and challenging to put it together, even if you sometimes spend too much time trying to shove a piece into the wrong space. At some point, you figure out that you're doing it wrong, and you try a different piece."

What a novel idea! Snap: another year of the puzzle complete. This is how I feel.

In my early life with my family, I was acquiring the pieces, pieces that would shape who I would become. When I went away to college, I started putting together who I was going to be and building my puzzle. After college, I put a lot of pieces together, but really more than that, I spent a lot of time often trying to cram pieces in where they just didn't fit. Over and over again, I wanted that puzzle to take on more shape, and I jammed and forced and struggled to fit it all together: with relationships that were never going to work out, and with jobs that I hated and struggled through, completely miserable.

My puzzle has a lot more shape to it now. I see it as about half of the way complete. I'm seeing the pieces of my family life right in front of me, fitting together. Ian and I and his girls are still finding our way, and it is still a struggle at times, but I have the pieces now. I'm still trying to see how I feel about adding more to our puzzle, because at times it feels very complete. I'm not sure yet if there is another piece missing or not. I still need more time to figure that out. But I know that decision will continue to take shape, and I will be able to make peace with it, when the time comes.

Ian enables me to keep working on the parts of me that are mine, in my career, to be able to take that time for myself. In the past year, an enormous piece of my professional puzzle fell into place. Although I have more about my work self to figure out and keep working on, and countless more challenges ahead to tackle, I have leaps and bounds more hope that I am on the right track. This fits me, I think. I can be happy doing this. 

When my Lauren was born, she was the biggest piece of the puzzle for my life to feel complete. My place in this world as a mother took shape. She gave every day meaning again, for the first time in a very long time. She challenges me every day, and she makes me grow as a human being: to be better, to love more. I understand that this is not a piece in every one's puzzle, and I am not saying that parenthood is for everyone, or that mothers are somehow superior to people without children. But for me, I didn't truly start living life to the fullest until I brought our child into the world. She was a gift; a surprise. She looks nothing like me, and although she is a version of me, she is her own person with her own puzzle to build and figure out. All I can do is give her the pieces she needs to one day fulfill her own dreams: to love her, take care of her, make her feel safe and help her discover who she is and where her place in the world will ultimately be.

Over the past year I've also started realized that some relationships aren't worth the strife or struggle to keep making them fit. I have changed and evolved and I can accept that we have all changed, at this point in our lives. I have spent a lot of energy on these relationships, and after much heartache, I have accepted them for what they are, or are never, going to be. This makes me sad, but it is all a part of the process, along with the happy and good things. I hope in my heart that they can come full circle; that this isn't how it will always be, and that things will improve and be how they once were. But again, only time will tell.

So there you have it: 31 years of the puzzle are put together. I love thinking about the other half of this puzzle; the part not put together. What else is out there for me to discover, to do, to find, and experience?  I like to think that I will find a job that I was born to do, that I will develop my writing, that I will travel more of the world, that I will make and form new exciting friendships, and that I will see Ian, myself and our children go on many adventures together.

I don't feel old, only older. I feel satisfaction in what I have already done, accomplished and learned. And I feel infinitely excited about the unknown.

Happy, happy birthday to me.

♥ V :)