When I wake up in the morning tomorrow, I will be 36.
I hadn’t expected to write anything tonight but had a change of plans, so instead here I am. I painted the master bedroom – no longer is it cream-colored walls with one bright, strong teal statement wall. Color, as I posted (in a maybe-not-safe-for-work photo) is important to me.
But so is that feeling of being home.
So the shocking teal wall is gone, now. Repainted – as is the entire master bedroom – in a warm, light-reflecting mocha color. I like it, it feels like a room you head to after a long day and expect that sleep will carry it all away. It’s the kind of place I wonder if I can watch snow fall in the winter, and allow myself to sit still long enough to watch it accumulate.
I’ve started to wear slightly more makeup when I have important meetings. My face is growing and ageing, I see it a little more. I see my face the way I never used to – before it was imperfections, and now it’s just me. Just me. I wonder if it’s why I don’t need to take so many self-portraits any more – no matter which way I turn, I think I understand who I am now. And I think in that comes a relaxed set of needs, a different view of myself. I don’t need a camera to show me who I might be – I think I now in my own head now.
As I get older I find things have a beauty which I haven’t seen before. It’s about taking my time and trying to see it. Ironic, isn’t it? When you’re a kid you spend all your time waiting for things to speed up, only to reach a point later in life where you just want to slow it all down.
I have had many incarnations since I started this blog. And the extremely wise Lea nailed what I thought might be the hub of it – people who come by here may not feel the need to be here if my life isn’t in turmoil. Or perhaps more to the point people want to read here because my entire history has been such high drama.
I know that people say leopards can’t change their spots, but the truth is that they can – you can find out that something was painted as a leopard but it really was a giraffe stuffed into leopard’s clothing all along. Horrible realizations came through last year – living separately, busting up a family, breaking hearts and shattered homes. He’s not perfect and I’m not perfect and together we had a not – perfect history and at the end of the day, we both found that we could be the person that the other person wanted. Moreover, we could be the person that the other person needed.
This isn’t to say that we don’t disagree, because we do. It isn’t to say we don’t argue any more, because of course we do. The nature and the reaction to arguments has changed, as has my view that issues between us need to remain between us.
But the basic truth holds – I seem happy because I am happy.
All of my life, all I have known is for life to be one giant walkway moving at a speed so high that I had to cling to the siderail to keep from being thrown. My whole life, from birth to some point recently, has been lived at high fucking drama and windswept moors that I shouted my way across. I inherited someone else’s drama from day 1 and I never knew that I could live my own life differently. And about three months ago, that realization hit and the implications of it came into my mind. Life doesn’t have to be fucking mental, it can be as calm as holding a little hand as it insecurely makes its way down a slide.
I made fairy cakes for the twins to take to nursery tomorrow, to celebrate Easter. Had I gone into the office I’d have taken some to pass round to colleagues that I laugh with, that I joke with, that I like. I’m part of a team now, even if I didn’t expect that to ever happen. Instead I’ll be in customer meetings all day tomorrow which means high heels, negotiations, managing expectations and tempers, and thinking of the twins opening up a box of fairy cakes at nursery, and their faces when they open it. And that, actually, is enough. That is my happy moment to take me through all of tomorrow, up until I am done with work for the day (and the four day weekend!) and I can go home to my family, to tantrums and cuddles and back episodes of Glee and DIY and all of the other things that the old me never knew she could have, and that the new me couldn’t live without. Life isn’t high excitement, and it’s not perfect. But it is the life I was meant to have, and I promise to give it all that I possibly can.
I’m not glossing over. Tomorrow I wake up an aging 36 year-old engaged mother of two and stepmum to two, full-time professional employee, serious geek, long-term blogger, and if you reached into my chest and pulled out my heart you would find it beating a rhythm that is so steady it instantly makes you relax and think of cocoa and Newbery Award books and wishing on stars.
I may not be as interesting reading, not having the tumultuous and tortured existence that I used to have.
I’m ok with that.
-S.
PS-and this, Mitzi, is a happy birthday on the right day, as I am online today after all and I hope your day has been glorious.
I want to wish you a Happy birthday! And am glad there is someone else who can understand the torture it can be, sometimes, to have your birthday on April Fool’s Day. So, enjoy your day.
Happy Birthday for tomorrow, sweetheart. Absolutely fucking love this post. Not the 36 bit, obvs, because where you go, I have to shortly follow. It also occurs to me that I think I might now be channelling some of the stuff you’ve left behind!
You do realise: in future you will have to spend 36 long minutes on that naughty step?
Happy birthday! You know, inner peace and acceptance is a beautiful thing. It makes my heart sing to know that you are truly happy. And hey, I love non-dramactic living!
Happy Birthday for tomorrow.
And happ? I will stick around to read happy. I read because your words are beautiful.
Happy Birthday. I echo Veronica’s sentiment. Your journey many of us have followed cheering for you, crying with you, and generally loving your way with words.
Happy (early) birthday! I’m glad to hear you’re in such a good place.
Inner peace is a good thing.
FWIW, I don’t read because of any “drama,” I read because I like *you.*
And HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Happy Birthday! I hope the next 36 are filled with many more realizations and much happiness!
Happy birthday, sweet lady. May the upcoming year bring you all the joy and happiness you deserve. And you deserve a lot of it.
Happy birthday! Happy is good- reading about your happy times is good :-) big smiles for you and your emerging level of comfort in yourself and your life.
Great to hear that you have found the comfort in yourself and in your life. Wonderful to hear and I’ll speak up for being at least one person who enjoys reading whatever you write. I am not here for ‘trainwreck’ posts. I genuinely enjoy reading your words and I’m so glad that you continue to find time to share this little viewport into your life.
Christopher
Seems like you’re putting the happy in happy birthday. Which is fantastic to hear. <3
Happy Birthday!!! :)
Happy Birthday…..loved the post it was an ‘at home in my skin’ post ! For me who has lived life at times as a never ending roller coaster a while back I decided that ordinary could be more than ok .
I read your blog for many reasons not least because of your refreshingly honest take on life x
PS and Nick and Nora will be wearing …….on ‘the day’?
I wanted my Happy Birthday to be it’s own comment and not combined into my thoughts. Forgive me for taking up the extra space, but I think your day warrants it’s own place. :)
As for you not being interesting because you are finally home…I am in the same place you are. Finally content with me and my surroundings…my role in life. My blog is entirely uninteresting, although I do discuss bits of my past as they come up in my life now, and I do not have many readers. I’m okay with that. I’m okay with that because I’m okay with me — I don’t need the reassurance anymore.
I will always read you, as I have since you first began writing, both here and at T.O.. You’ve always inspired me and your raw openness, even about your relationship to Alastair, has helped me mold into a healthy, whole person. The fact you’ve established boundaries with your blogging and relationship has taught me. And finally, after years of aspiring to have the courage you have, I am where you are…psychologically, I mean. I have yet to have children or start my career, but for the first time, I’m okay with me. A lot of that has to do with you.
So…my point is simply…those who are attracted to only the drama are in a very different place. Your life (as we know it) is like a good movie…and at some point, there has to be resolution. Obviously, your story isn’t done…but without growth, change, depth…it’s not as wholesome. Some people get off on that, some of us would rather admire the person you have grown to become as we’ve struggled with you, along the way. I would rather have THOSE readers than the others, personally. :)
You’re amazing, by the way. I am incredibly proud of you. Incredibly.
Happy Birthday Shannon! I so much prefer your happy posts to your in turmoil ones, I love this one.
Congratulations that you have the ability to be happy! It is hard work and an art after coming from dramatic origins and kind of switch the light switch, change the programming of the ancestors, discover your real needs and be yourself.
I think your life is still exciting enough to be interesting for your readers, being a working woman and a mother and wife at the same time, coping with every day life problems. That’s what is interesting because that’s what life is all about and what we all experience: Bringing up children,loving and fighting with a spouse, making money and dealing with people at work, going on vacation, recovering from diseases…and so on. I prefer to read from a struggle to be happy rather than from repeating and producing dramas over and over, that I also know too well…
Your description and analyzing makes it interesting, to put every day life and thoughts into words.
Happy birthday and happy Easter!
P.
I am thrilled that your life is no longer as high drama as it once was; that the turmoil has quieted; that a peace has descended. My reason for reading has never been an interest in any drama, but in your humanity within the dramatic.
I have been praying for a long time for you to be ‘mended’, and this post (along with many others over the last few months) is indicative of a very apparent new wholeness, and I’m so pleased for you. I don’t comment very often, but I read very regularly, and love you (in that non-stalkery, but very real, internet way, that one can feel deeply for someone who one has never met). Hope your birthday is full of joy. :)
Happy birthday, hope it’s a good one (at least it’s not snowing so that’s something). I will be 47 in June. it’s just like being 32, 36 but with more grey hair.
Drama queens are interesting to visit with but no good to live with, be happy, let the storms die down and enjoy the peace in your life.
Happy Birthday!
I think the happy Shannon is as good a read as the old Helen.
I wish you a very happy and relaxed birthday, and a year that is relaxed in it’s own right and with it’s own totally newfound calmness and peace- and I second Secret D: A happy Shannon is as good a read as Helen, less drama, but less worry on my side, too:)
Lily
Happy birthday, dear Shannon. Happy birthday to you!
I don’t read your blog for the drama, I read it because your life is interesting (to me) and because your life has a definite sense of marching forward which I find inspiring. And well, you just write really well.
Happy Birthday!
As it’s now today, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
(Again *lol*)
Wishing you a very very happy birthday!! :)
Happy Birthday Love!
I’m here for the long haul, even when I don’t seem to be. No matter what. I’m like the herpes of blog readers, I guess.
Happy Birthday. I’m glad it’s truly going to be a ‘happy’ one, too. Drama gets old. ;-)
Many sweet birthday wishes to you, Shannon..
I’m around for the long term, too. Happy, sad, bat-shit crazy – I’ll take you anyway you are.
I don’t come for the drama, I come for the lovely lady that I find here time and time again… the very REAL woman that is a beautiful writer and makes me think and feel and cry and laugh and sometimes just makes me feel content knowing there really CAN be light after the darkness. You confirm it for me constantly. Happy Birthday, Shannon… and many, many, many more contented years to come.
Happy birthday, and wishing you your most genuinely happy year yet.
Am happy for you Helen – you’e worked for this happiness. Hugs!
Happy Birthday tomorrow! Many happy returns. :)
Oops I mean today! lol
Happy Birthday, my dear! May this coming year be the best ever. And it very well could be, the way things sound!
whoa, me? extremely wise?? ; ) Infrequent commenter that I am, I toiled a while to find the right way to say what I meant, but I suspected you already knew….and you did. The people who were only here for the turmoil feel pissed off and let down. But the people who are actually fond of you, not just internet drama, are still here.
This post actually gave me chills. I look forward to the day when I find that kind of peace. Infertility isn’t making it easy, but i have high hopes for some day…
Happy Pre-Birthday! 36 is a very good year, if you choose for it to be so.
Also, don’t overestimate the appeal of high drama, or underestimate the appeal of maturity. We’ve all had that person in our lives that is always having buildings explode around them. Drama is wearing on the reader and on the subject over time. Eventually the persistent drama queen earns nothing more than a furtive eye roll.
Maturity, however, seems to earn more fascination as it develops – especially in women. I adore watching mature actresses who have let their faces age naturally – Helen Mirren and Judi Dench, Meryl Streep, etc. There’s something simultaneously comforting and seductive in people who embrace maturity.
Happy Birthday!! No drama? No problem.
I talked to a guy a few years ago, and he pointed out that most people argue to win. But when we do have arguments, we should argue/discuss to resolve. Winning shouldn’t be the goal. Words of wisdom indeed.
The Hooters (a band from the ’80s & early ’90s) had a song called “Fighting on the Same Side.” Often we argue as though we’re enemies with our spouse/partner, but we’re really on the same side and are allies.
I was 36 when I started reading your blog; now I’m 44. Time does fly. ☺
Mazel tov on surviving and thriving another year!
I agree with Annalisa. The whole point of coming to read you is that you always seemed to be striving for better things instead of just reveling in misery. How on earth could I be unhappy that you’re making breakthroughs in getting a better life? “Life doesn’t have to be fucking mental.” Yes! Exactly!
As for writing— you write well because you write well, not because of the drama. Some people can’t tell a story to save their lives and you are the opposite of that.
Happy birthday. I, for one, could not be happier for your happiness! I love reading your blogs when they are glowing with your inner peace. Carry on.
Sorry, I couldn’t disagree with you more. I don’t come here ‘because your life is a wreck’. You’re smart, interesting, and write really well. Truth be told, you stress me the fuck out when your life is a wreck. So, be happy, okay?
P.S. – Happy Birthday!!!
Sorry, I couldn’t disagree with you more. I don’t come here ‘because your life is a wreck’. You’re smart, interesting, and write really well. Truth be told, you stress me the fuck out when your life is a wreck. So, be happy, okay?
P.S. – Happy Birthday!!!
Happy Birthday!
And no matter what? We’ll still be here as long as you are.
Happy Birthday!
(you’re still interesting, and still a great writer…)
That post, as do many of yours, brought tears to my eyes. I am so glowingly pleased for you!
I hope you have had the best ever of birthdays, Shannon.
Happy birthday!! (It’s still April 1st here, dammit)
I will be here through whatever you write. I love the happy much more than the not because, gall dangit, people deserve the happy. I might not always get to comment, but I am back here reading.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday! My son and you share the same birthday. The lime green you were painting the kitchen reminds me of a purse I am currently coveting. I’ll keep coming as long as you keep writing, no matter what the topic. I love reading all from the mommy blog posts, aubergines on vacations and short stories. Enjoy your weekend.
Happy birthday!
And wow, what a post!!
x