February 28th Four Zero Plus One Seven Equals..

I didn't know whether I was going to say anything on my blog about today being my non-Birthday. Why a non-Birthday? Because my birthday is 29 February and slap bang at midnight for 3 years in a row, on the 28th February, I jump up and down. do cartwheels and scream yay - Happy Birthday to me. Yeah right. Reality is that at midnight I am usually releasing an extremely loud crescendo from my nasal passage (well not only that passage at times to be brutally honest), and then March 1st arrives and I think here's another one. Then to remind myself of my age, I have to recall the year we are in and deduct my year of birth, and think good gosh, is that how old I am? Baaaaaaaah, that is old, I am old, sob, sob, sob.

Well I used to. Until I started analyzing birthdays. We spend our lives as youngsters waiting for the next birthday. Let's contemplate how the spectrum runs. Wow I can't wait for baby's first birthday, then it's oh my gosh its their 5th, and then the child takes over and is waiting to become a teenager, a young adult, rushing to celebrate 21. We then reach the top of the hill we have been eagerly anticipating all through the years, and it's time to go downhill. Which is when the dreaded thirty hits. We mumble our age if someone asks us, and the truth is only revealed if we have a shindig and celebrate a decade birthday (or in my case, when a leap year rolls around).

Now I am  protesting. I embrace the fact that I am alive and here to enjoy each birthday. So what if I am 57?  I may not fit the Hollywood  (or for that matter anyone else's) mold or look like how various advertisers and woman's magazines intend I should look. But at least I am above ground and not a pile of bones in a box or a bunch of ashes sitting on the mantlepiece. I don't have to frantically try to hold onto my youth with plastic features and then have the most awful wrinkly hands and/or turkey neck that says my age is otherwise.

I am 57 today. I am proud I made it this far. I am happy to be me - warts and all. Not that I have any warts - fortunately an affliction I managed to bypass my entire 57 years.

My recommendation too all? Be proud that you have reached another birthday. It is so true - they are just numbers.  Instead of dwelling on the number of years I have inhabited this body, I am embracing the family I am surrounded by,  the people I have met, the encounters that have shaped me, the sights I have seen in some exotic and not so exotic places, and dare I say it - some damn good food and alcoholic varieties I have tasted. Life is damn good and we have to appreciate every single minute of it and that we are alive to enjoy it - even when the bad does get thrown at us.

I know it is unrealistic to expect to be around for another 57 years, but for every birthday that greets me henceforth, I will step up to it and think Óh yeah, Oh yeah, another year, I made it.

Ánd wonderful George, a king amongst husbands, spoilt me yet again. A fantastic present and then he also surprised me with these beautiful flowers