a hippy chick

* I’m posting this entire post, including the bottom part that I wrote before bed last night, because it’s my blog and I can, and because it’s important for me to be able to look back on this as a growth lesson.*

This morning at precisely 8:10 a.m., a little voice that sounded much less sick chimed in my ear “Mommy! Today is your birthday!”  How he remembered is beyond me…this kid thinks Michigan was “yesterday”. But somehow he knew, and when I rolled over and gave him a big grin, he started singing Happy Birthday.  I don’t know if I’ve ever said what a beautiful voice lil pill has, and how grateful I am that God gave him my musical ability and not Mr. A’s (tone deaf), but hearing that song was just enough to make the whole day great.

Read the rest of the post, and you’ll see what I mean, but perspective is sometimes the hardest thing to reach in my life.  I’m constantly being confronted with pre-conceived notions that just one slight modification will permanently alter.  Kind of like this morning, when I was all set to hate this day and be morose until it was over…then in chimes lil pill.  God has a sense of humor, is all I know.  And infinite patience for sure.

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It’s the human condition. We all want to be loved, and noticed. We want to matter, to have someone miss us, to leave a hole when we are gone. I’ve always wanted to do something big to make a difference in the world. But I’m struggling with the feeling that I don’t matter, that no one notices at all, and that I am just taking up too much air on this planet.

Today is my 34th birthday, and Youngest Child Syndrome is kicking in, bigtime.  My birthday has always felt like the “been there, done that” milestone, as my closest sibling is 11 years older than me.  I turned 16 and everyone had done it years before (not only am I the youngest in my family, but I was always the youngest in my class).  21? Yawn.  My dad had just been diagnosed with cancer and I was eating my way through all the Sonic’s in Oklahoma.  30? Hugely pregnant, wanting a big party and a big birthday but unable to see my feet or anything else but the suddenly cavernous pores on my nose.

This birthday isn’t a milestone of any significance.  Yet it’s the first time that neither my mom nor anyone from my family will be here to make me a cake or at least give me a perfunctory hug.  I’m searching for a reason to believe that I matter, that I mean something in this world.  My daddy was always very good at letting me know that; but I’ve kind of lost it along the way, I think.  I’m just trying to live my life, pay the bills, do little things to find a spot of happiness, without focusing too much on the bigger picture. The fact is…I don’t want to be forgotten, and the pool of people who know and care about me seems to be shrinking by the minute.

I don’t want to be whiney and selfish and self-absorbed, either.  I KNOW how incredibly lucky I am, okay? And I also know there are people-normal people-who spend their birthdays surrounded by friends and family, making golden wishes by sparkling candlelight like you see in practically every movie.  I’ve never had that experience. It’s part of what I fear the most, having an only child.  I don’t want him-someday when I am gone- to wonder if anyone really knows him or cares about him, especially on the day when people “check in” to say hey! happy birthday.

This blog is not about pretending that I’ve overcome things when I haven’t gotten there yet.  It’s not about being the almighty holy grail of single motherhood.  I have faults and failings and lots of fears.  I am not so self-congratulatory to think I’m a pretty great person, and you should all just want to meet me and love me forever!  Yet I’m trying to grow, and learn, and be a better friend, and be worthy of loving myself and being loved by others.  I put all my feelings and thoughts out in cyberspace because that’s just me.  I don’t hold back, ever, even when I should.  So I’m the weeist bit sensitive about being told to suck it up.
I really, really don’t need anyone telling me how blessed I am, and how if I just focused on that everything would be okay.  I KNOW THAT.  And you know, that knowledge doesn’t make it all magically okay.  It’s just the place I inhabit right now.  I want to say to those people–and there have been more than one—

“Do you even know what it is like to live in my shoes?  Taught all my life that I’m destined for greatness, and not having achieved any of it so far–and in fact, failing at my dreams for fame as a musician, failing to make my family proud, failing at marriage, failing at self-control, failing financially?  Getting older and wondering…am I fooling myself, believing that this isn’t all there is to life?”

The fact is, I’ve always been the outsider - even in my family -, and as a natural introvert I haven’t been surrounded by friends all my life to become my “family” and make me feel otherwise. I miss the friends I’ve made and lost over the years…because it’s a painfully slow process for me, one at a time.  I’m basically alone in this state, wondering how in the heck I got here and where I go from here.  Wondering if I will ever be part of a big, boisterous, loyal, football-watching family.  Is this something I can make happen if I click my ruby red slippers together enough?  Or should I just read up on horticulture, adopt a few pets, and resign myself to singlehood for the next 50 years?

These are my birthday thoughts. I am a Pisces, after all.  Damn it, I want to be cheerful and happy most of the time and have one of those blogs that make you laugh out loud.  I know I’D much prefer reading something like that.  But this is my life.  This is where I’m at.  This is who I am. And I won’t pretend.