Birthday Anticipation

Today is...

...my last blog at the age of 51. My birthday is tomorrow.

I've been anticipating this birthday much like New Year's, having missed a standard New Year at home this year. (come back for what I intend to be '52 Weeks @ 52') Feeling my whole life was on 'hold' January 1st for an unknown amount of time, I never bothered to hone in on intentions/aspirations, plans, dreams, hopes, etc. Maybe that's actually part of the unappreciated beauty of a Spring birthday too - even IF I had done all of those introspective things - now is a good time (before too much of the year has slipped away) to re-assess and tweak the best of intentions. Normally all of that is way beyond me - believing it all too much of an attempt to control too much. Even when I was quite young I latched onto the lyric by John Lennon where he states 'LIFE is what happens while you're making OTHER plans.' I've lived long enough now to have learned that while it sounded wise and profound when I first stumbled upon it - it's way too often way too true for most of us. I live in constant amazement at folks I know who can plan vacations/events even as much as a month in advance - never mind a year or so.

Having seen so very up close and personal how much of my mother's life she's lost recently it becomes even more essential for me to squeeze the absolute most I can from each and every moment of my own!

Part of what motivates me is in November of 2005 I was told by a harsh and very unkind cardiologist that without a particular kind of pacemaker he wanted to insert the next morning he didn't give me 5 years to survive. IF he was correct, this birthday could very likely be my last. But, then - isn't that potentially true of any of us? We just don't get told so quite so bluntly. I'll admit to a tendency to gloat and say 'toldja so' on occassion - I do soooooooo enjoy being 'right' sometimes. But there's no 'right' mixed up in this. What I want - deeply, earnestly - is for him to just be WRONG! I have a daughter in college expected to graduate NEXT year. By the Sunday following my Saturday ER visit - that doc had mailed me a letter saying that he declined to ever see me again as a patient (due to my declining his recommended treatment? I know they can choose to treat patients inelligible for insurance/aid...). Call me petty...but I really, REALLY just want him to have been WRONG!