Dear Internet,
It is nearly midnight.
After my confession, and the cascade of tears that followed, I feel more at ease in my skin. Plans were made for a birthday dinner with my brother and husband, apparently a new family tradition, at The Chop House. Retail therapy cures everything, so before dinner I headed to the mall where I bought myself a new dress and shoes for the evening. The shoes, which while Instagram’d to death, are nude cork wedges. Totally un-Lisa like. But I’m tired of being Lisa-like, so the shoes were bought. While perusing the racks at Macy’s, I considered shoplifting as something also un Lisa-like, but decided that buying shoes that were not my style was more in speed with change. I didn’t fancy spending my 40th birthday night in jail.
After hitting publish on my last post, flowers arrived from my brother’s girlfriend, Teresa, and texts started filling up my phone of birthday love and wishes from friends and family. A few phone calls arrived during dinner and the feeling of being blessed descended upon me, cleansing a bit of the grey away, as the evening wore on. I knew this, logically of course I knew I was loved, but emotionally it does not compute. It never has. It also stands to reason that if I do not feel/believe the love, then I must also not be worthy of all the gifts granted on to me. I am beyond lucky. Rationally, again, I’m aware. I force myself to ground myself in this knowledge, even when I’m at crying at work, because I need something to remind me of what I have when I always feel that I have nothing.
This weekend, TheHusband is whisking me away to a swanky resort up in Traverse City for my birthday. The dress, and the shoes, will be taken with us for weekend. His and her bathing suits were purchased and with hopes that if we have a grand time this weekend, the following weekend we’ll go up north again, but longer. Four days instead of two. Then, on June 28th, my ankle surgery and I’ll spend the rest of the summer in a cast.
I received a load of outpouring of support already, which in this policy of honesty, I want to address. But not now, not tonight with my belly full of steak and birthday cake. Tonight I am feeling in love with the world, for the first time in a very long time and I want to savor this feeling for as long as possible so I can remember what it was like, later, when the world eludes my grasp.
x0x0,
Lisa