Celebrate your birthday every month!
Being your own best friend means celebrating yourself more than once a year!
My Dad always told me you have to be your own best friend! At the time he was trying to give me advice on eating alone at lunch during middle school. I had moved schools and had no friends.
I ignored his advice and set out to make many great friends. Both during Middle School and thoughout my life. I cherish each of them.
I must say I am a very good friend. I take freindship seriously. I treat my friends like gold. I remember birthdays. I plan get togethers. I check in. I call. I even write letters. Some of the greatest gifts of my life are my friends. However, the friend I treat the best is ME!
I’m also my own best friend. I am not one of those women who gives everything away! In fact, I know if I give everything away, I won’t have any of myself to give to the people I love.
I am a working Mom. I have two jobs, as an artist and college professor. And two kids. Twin teens. And two elderly parents.
It is called the sandwitch generation for a reason. You get chewed! Over and over.
So a few years ago. I decided to combine two great ideas from two great female authors. Julia Cameron who wrote The Artist’s Way and Beth Pickens who wrote Make Your Art No Matter What. Both these writers suggest giving yourself dates and days. Cameron talks about the well known “artist date.” Take yourself somewhere. See a movie. Go to a garden. Snap photos of your neighborhood. The key is that you do this alone. That you give yourself a date to explore creativity. Pickens suggests taking one day a month to do anything but work. She suggests paying attention to your health, your relationships and your well being.
I found both these ideas very useful. For the last two years I have been taking care of my father who is at the end of his life. I know there won’t be many more birthdays for him. So I started celebrating my birthday’s monthly. Yes, even with cupcakes.
Each month I pick a place, an activity, and a cupcake. I explore. Taking the day off work, mothering, and caretaking. I do not schedule appointments on that day with others. This is a day just for myself. And sometimes the hardest promises to keep are to yourself and to your joy. But if you keep the promise to yourself, what joy awaits you.
Letting myself have twelve days a year to celebrate the passage of time on this glorious planet is my birthright. To notice what I am doing well and eating a tiny cake is something every human should do.
We often squander our celebrations!
Before celebrating my monthly birthday, I often skipped my birthday or played it down. I am born in December. Most people are very distrated around the holidays. So I used to combine my birthday with our Christmas/Haunkah party. I don’t do this anymore.
I deserve a day or even twelve days to enjoy my life and my time. I am the most important person in my life. I am a person worth celebrating. As I blow the candels out on my cupcake, I rejoice in this life on this month. Grateful, ever so grateful.
