Continuance Day

Birthdays get hard when you get older.

I generally have looked upon every birthday after 30 as extra lives. HOLY CRAP! I honestly thought I'd be worm food by now. Spending years in the throes of suicidal angst will do that to a person. Then, the minute I got over the whole emo-before-emo-was-a-thing-please-kill-me-now-I-don't-wanna-live-nothing-can-make-me-happy phase of my life: cancer. Then I kicked cancer's ass for 10 years before it came back. And at 30... I was no where near death. I'd had a few near escapes, but I was pretty healthy at 30. Huh? How'd that happen?

31 and 32 weren't my best years. Actually, I wasn't really there. I was broken, I was a shell. 33 has been a bitch of a growing year. I actually loved it. I am more aware of myself, who I am, what I want, what I'm doing than I ever have been. I walk through my life with purpose now. I am fully invested. I alone am responsible for what my life looks like at this point.

So, the hardest part of turning 34 tomorrow is forward momentum. I've changed so much in the last year that I'm afraid I might not be able to keep it going. How self-aware can I get? Do I want to be? Am I going to be happy this year? Will I get complacent in my mental health that I get lazy and let the depression creep back in? How self-absorbed am I going to be? Will I be a good enough mom for Liam?

I've made promises to myself and Liam that I never intend to break, and most of them are about keeping our lives safe, and happy. I just wonder if I can keep it going.

So yeah, getting older is hard. But not because I don't want to be old. Because I worry I'm not doing enough with these years I never thought I'd have.

On Writing...

Few people know or remember that I was a writer once upon a time. Writing once was a safe haven for me. I used it as a tool to rid my soul of all the angst and horror that filled me. When the angst left, so did the desire, the need, the ability to write. It was almost as thought my writing ability was housed in that bitch of a cancerous ovary.

This poor little neglected blog was supposed to get me back into doing that. However, there was zero accountability other than my half-hearted promises that I would do better at it. And I never did. For a couple of years, this little dark blog has hung out on the interwebs, waiting for me to fill it full of the anecdotes that used to flow from me so easily. I've paused momentarily throughout the years to reflect on how writing used to soothe me, and promise to try again... with no results. I do miss writing. I have friends who are publishing things now and I can't help but think, "That could/should be me." And it should. I shouldn't have let dying stop me from pursuing my goals.

So, where I'm going with this is that I've been writing again this weekend. Really. Not on this blog, but on my other online journal. A certain person suggested I get back into it, and his praise has really freed me to keep going. I have written outlines for a couple of stories, and it feels amazing to be writing again. I can't promise that I'll be writing here on the regular, but I am making progress. I feel obligated now to do this, since he has asked everyday if I've written anything new. And it's more obligated to ME. To my own growth to keep at it. I'm hoping to get back to the point where it's second nature again.

Who knows what this may lead to? I might actually be happy in my life someday if I keep making progresses like this.