Happy Birthday - to me

Turning 40 today. Not exactly feeling young here.

Much much going through my thoughts in the past week. After learning the not so joyful news, I've been doing my best not to think or worry about anything. But every now and then I couldn't help and let my pessimistic side come out and thinking about all the worst possible things that may happen.

I want to find my old self again. The much optimistic self at the age 20. It's a struggle to try to find my old self from 20 years ago when nothing would worry me at all. I want to find that self again, that person who thought life was so full of great possibilities, that person who didn't think twice about packing up a bag and travel on her own for months in total foreign lands. I want to find that old self who was enjoying life to the fullest.

What happened to her? What happened to me?

Physically aging does not bother me. But I'm not liking the fact that I allowed myself to feel old and fearful and pessimistic about life in the past 10 years. I know life has not gone the way I'd dreamed it would be. I'm not liking the job I do, I'm not liking many many things in life, but it's so not cool that I'm letting all of that defining my life and changing my core personality.

What is it? Is it the cynical attitudes, the sarcastic humor that is so common among the Gen X that I belong to? Could it be that the cynical view of the world out there I adopted at a younger age had eventually turned inward towards myself? And I became this jaded, old person inside, much, much older than 40.

I am promising myself, from now on, I won't let my inner self age that quickly as I had allowed it in the past 10 years. Whatever life throws at me, I will face it with a more easy going attitude, with a lighter heart. I am promising myself I will again see the brighter side of things. I should learn that, at the age of 40, yes, there is always the brighter side. I will enjoy life.

This is the birthday gift I am giving myself -
Permission To Enjoy Life.