A new year, starting now...

Written on June 23, 2015:

Today's my 37th birthday. Most people don't know how old I am because I look younger than I am. I always have. I didn't really realize it until I was 13 and someone thought I was 10 years old. Not what someone just starting their teenage years wants to hear. My most important young milestones were marred by incorrect assumptions and careless attitudes by people who seemed eager to tell me just what they thought of me: when I was 16, I looked like "a little kid". Not very sweet. On my 18th birthday celebration, someone I just met said she thought I was 12. Really? That felt cruel at the time. Also the fact that guys my age thought the same, that I was young and boring and not worth the time. Any time throughout the past 2 decades that I told anyone my age, they gave me "that look" and either didn't believe me or thought something was wrong with me. So, birthdays (and my age, specifically) have not been something I talk about or look forward to. I'm an introvert, so all the attention is hard to handle as well. And my dog, Lazy, died on my 33rd birthday, so that's another reason to feel some dread at the approach. Bad memories.

But today, I had an epiphany: why not look at it as a new year, a new start this time. People always say to have a great year, because a birthday is a mark of another year of life. I never really looked at it as a New Year type of thing though. But why not? The first 6 months of this year have been terrible, heartbreaking. So why can't the next 6 months be better...a new chapter, a new year. I can look at it that way.