Happy 31st birthday, Athena
This last year has been interesting; 30 was the best yet – but not the best to come.
This year you submitted manuscripts, jumped out of an airplane at 14,000 feet, got a new apartment, discovered you don’t suck at your job, made new friends, got new photo gigs, insisted on dating even though most experiences were about as fun as an acid enema – you didn’t crawl under a rock but just kept trying. This year you rediscovered your love affair with Portland, got a new book contract, lost tears on the freeway, bought your first piece of art, made a home with your brother, bought dresses, got soundly kissed by two different men – and one of them, finally … made your toes curl.
So this brings you to the now….
This year, make peace with the fact that sometimes – on occasion – you must ask for help.
Remember that accepting help does not make you a damsel. It doesn’t mean you are weak or incapable. It simply means you could use a little help for a moment. Don’t think it over any more than that.
And while we’re on the topic, Athena – this new adventuring into the heartlands again could mean you need to stay sharp with your intelligence, BUT – don’t over think it too much. You are walking into the part of bliss that runs on the illogical gears of emotions and those are rarely predictable or comprehensible. Be smart – but sometimes being smart means – feeling it, rather than thinking it to death. Just a thought.
This year you got a jump start to your engine. Right before your 31st birthday, you felt butterflies escape from the self inflicted repression of your fear and they carried with them a tentative hope. The slender and delicate possibility that you are still fully capable of being wildly passionate. They were fleeting. There in your belly and gone so fast – but you didn’t imagine it… you are still fully functional.
So get out there and love again. Write about it. Enjoy it. Thrive on it and let yourself be filled.
This is the hardest advice I think I can give you this year. The one thing I think you must work on the most – even though you will fight it… Now that you know you are free to love and give of yourself again… you must allow someone to love you in return. I know, I know, this thing I ask you to do is harder than asking for help. It’s harder than catching a live spider with your bare hands. It feels like I am asking you to dive into a tank full of starving sharks or push a rusty railroad spike through your shinbone. What I am asking you to do this year is the hardest thing I have ever asked of you before – and only you will ever actually know how terrifying, how uncomfortable this will be. What I am asking you to do goes against all your self preservation – I am asking you not to struggle.
Don’t fight it. Don’t bite and kick and scream and push against it with all your stores of strength and escape artists tricks. Don’t loophole, navigate or slip through an opening. Don’t sink your teeth into them or slice them with your tongue if they smile at you and don’t run in the opposite direction if you feel the urge to smile back.
I want you to make a stand – and be open.
Don’t struggle. Test it out. Be curious. Be cautious if you must – but don’t run away. You’re putting in some tiny roots here – so experiment with the possibility, the probability – the reality, that you are very much worth loving. You have all the working parts again to make someone a fantastic lover, friend and partner. You have in you the innate ability to cherish and nurture. You are a prize! Why do you insist on forgetting that? Remember. Remember how valuable you are. You are worthy of so much all you have to do…
Is let someone love you.
To be sure – you can make them work for it, prove themselves. Don’t give yourself away – but don’t lock yourself away either. I know it’s easier for you to love someone unrequited than to let them love you back. I know you are capable and more comfortable suffering in silence than to let them close enough to take you in. What I ask I don’t ask without knowing what it is you are afraid of, and what is mostly habit. This year – Receive.
Plant.
This year put in your roots. Plant things that grow and leaf and stretch toward the sky. Plant living things. Plant blooming things. Plant what will create sustenance for you. Plant a home. Plant your relationships and nurture them. Plant food and flowers and the seeds for a thriving future. Put your toes in the dirt and turn your face to the sun and Grow.
Grow upward.
Grow into your skin, your ideas your dreams for an epic life. Grow with tendrils into the earth and stretch yourself into the vastness of the Universe there to bloom.
Bloom with the conviction that you are a beautiful creature. Blossom with the knowledge, the absolute surety that you are a gorgeous woman in the height of her vibrant existence. Open yourself to the light and comprehend, for once in your life, that you, Athena, are a magnificent porcelain skinned goddess, kissed by freckles with fairies in your wild hair. They whisper, in tiny voices as they build nests in the elderwoods of your mane that you are delicious to look upon, and must take precautions with fragile hearts of mortal men. Blossom into loving again, so your heart might shine.
Wear more lipstick and give away more smiles.
Enjoy investing in shoes.
Indulge in chocolate.
Write.
Take Pictures.
Scrapbook.
All this is what I challenge you to do this year. You are in your prime. Freshly cleaned, and reorganized. You are beginning the 31st year with an exact birth minute lunar eclipse of 5:55 pm on the 5th of August 2009. You begin this year with a new book contract. New friends. New lovers. And the awareness that you are whole and electric, vibrant and open.
Happy 31st Birthday, Athena. This one is already shaping up to be the best one yet.
I love you, Athena.
Now get out there and have some fun.
P.S. You laughed so much this last year, please keep doing that. I love it when you’re smiling.
P.P.S - And you know that thing I told you about not being totally broken – I TOLD YOU SO!
P.P.P.S – It turns out kissing is fun! You’d forgotten how much fun that can be – you should do it more. Just Sayin’
Oh, and one more thing – WRITE!
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