It's my birthday, and I am now 24 years old. My body responds by being sick, of course. I respond in kind with an artillery of drugs, because I am going to a concert tonight, and that is that.
However, I am not here to kvetch.
After taking a nap today, I awoke to find a large, chocolatey temptress of a cupcake sitting at my computer, with an attending card, from parents. It was a pleasant "surprise" (it's hard to be surprised on your birthday; one kind of expects something out of the average to happen). So I went to my mom, thanked her for the card and cupcake, and then politely abstained from devouring the dessert. She understood, and I of course offered it for her and dad to eat.
This is, in action, part of my gift to myself. I could easily have forsaken everything and scarfed down the whole sugary kit and kaboodle. If I hadn't downed a bunch of advil, tylenol, and excedrin today, or didn't care about my liver, I would likely booze it up later. Then, I would have stayed up late, doing lordy knows what. I choose not to use Time as an excuse to speed up the ravages of Time, however. The best gift I can give myself today is take control of myself.
The past year has not been kind to me, overall. (See: this, this, and this.) Then, again that's not quite right: I haven't been kind to me. Essentially, I had given up and given in. In losing so much self-control, I had lost much sense of self. This has proven necessary, however, to vomit up some things which were dragging me down. Yet, not even a month ago, my grasp on my identity was close to dissipated. The mental ground upon which I walked seemed to be ever shifting, and I was about to be sucked in.
I have had it, though. I have had it with giving into depression, jealousy, loneliness, envy, incompetence, inferiority. One can admit that one's life isn't quite where one wishes it were without allowing these base feelings come in to play. I have had it with letting these said emotions run my life; they will still be there, naturally, but not in the pilot's seat.
How does a cupcake factor into this? Part and parcel with my mental health, my physical health went down the drain. In the summer of 2010, I lost 40 pounds, going from 185 to 145. I am now back at 180, and all my previous health problems I had overcome have come back. So I am doing a 6-week Paleo challenge, and for the next 30 days (well, 28 now), I will only eat certain, healthful foods. It will be difficult, and only yesterday I spent much of my waking moments telling myself "No!," in a conversation not much unlike the kind Gollum has with himself; yet, the best things in life are difficult pleasures, for the payoffs are glorious. (Why Paleo? Of all the ways of nutrition I have read about, only Paleo has proven well nigh 100% effective, not to mention making a lot of sense. Plus, it is because of Paleo that I lost the weight in 2010.) I resort to eating when I'm bored (that is, to keep myself busy, because of an over-active mind), when I'm emotional, or when I'm hungry. With the way my life has been going in the last year, those three things covered most of my waking hours.
Therefore, I will not give into my body's maniacal urge for easy desires and mind-numbing delights. Instead of using my birthday as excuse to let myself go, I will use this memorial to my aging as a reason to do myself good. I am still in hibernation, not quite ready to spring fully forth, but I am also not wasting my time, using my relative free time between now and when I go to England to rebuild myself, to regain my confidence, and to strengthen myself against giving into what has for so long been holding me back.
Well, now for a piece of music to match my mood: My favorite work by my favorite composer, Sibelius' Fifth Symphony.
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