My Birthday

My birthday has come and gone, back in August. I've survived the various birthday dinners and lunches, and accompanying splurges (only one really outrageous, involving dinner with girlfriends, cocktails, sweet potato fries, and dessert). I've eaten cake without descending into diet hell. I have managed all this despite not only my birthday in August, but several friends and family members' in July, August, and early September.

Birthdays are a time of celebration, no matter how old you are. As a child, you celebrate getting older and getting closer to the expected rewards and privileges of maturity. (Although, once you are older, those rewards are less appealing. Once you get past 16 (driver's license), 18 (voting), and 21 (legal drinking), age related bonuses diminish quickly. Maybe being able to rent a car at 25, but that's about it! Oh, running for president at 35 is a big one, if you're into that kind of thing.) When you are middle-aged to old (and far be it from me to determine what age constitutes those milestones), a birthday signifies survival for another year! And that's nothing to sneeze at.

Now that I'm over 40 (okay, 42), I find that I am neither excited about my age nor overly disturbed about it. Turning 40 was a big deal, and I'm horrified over the idea of nearing 50 (many, many years in the future), and 45 I'm not too thrilled about either. But right now, early 40's, I'm okay with.

I was 39 when I made the commitment to turn my life around and get into shape by the time I was 40. I first came up with that idea when I was turning 38, but it took me a full year to get on the right track. Actually, it took me almost three months past my 39th birthday before I really committed.

By the time I hit 40 I had lost about 100 pounds and had changed my life and appearance immensely. I was by no means "done," but the changes were huge (literally). It took another six to nine months before I got to a weight where I have been relatively stable ever since. Stable in that "I need to lose 5, 10, 20 pounds and then I'll be done" kind of way.

I think of my birthday as a kind of New Year, when I reflect on my life and set my goals for the year to come. Like New Year's resolutions, my goals are always pretty similar each year. Lose weight (a little bit more), exercise (keep up the good work, improve where necessary), spend less money and pay off bills. My specific goals for this year are:

• Reach my reasonable goal weight and stay there.
• Incorporate weight training into my fitness plan.
• Work with a personal trainer at least a few times.
• Find out what my body fat percentage really is, and perhaps do some additional fitness tests/measurements.
• Run the Whidbey Half Marathon on April 13 and the Robie Creek Half Marathon in Boise on April 19 (two half marathons in a week will be the closest I ever plan to running a marathon).
• Get my house back into shape.
• Work on my garden.
• Clean out my closets of excess clothes and make room for what remains.
• Spend less money and pay off some bills (some things never change).

Just for fun, here are some fantasy goals too....

• Be in the audience of the Oprah show.
• Run a half marathon in England (a fantasy only because it's in this year's list - the following year it might be feasible, when I can afford another trip to England and/or the exchange rate goes down).
• Write a weight loss article/book for publication (isn't that what bloggers do?).
• Get an arm tuck (if we're talking fantasy, there's a number of other tucks I would like as well!).
• Go to some social events where I can wear the fantastic dressy outfits I seem to have accumulated.

So, here's to birthdays, goals, resolutions, wishes and dreams. Check back in a year and we'll see how I've done!