Monday, November 7, 2011

My Birthday Wish

Yesterday I turned 36.

That's right, gentle readers, your MatchGirl is now officially closer to forty than thirty.
This dear ones, is a big deal.

Maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe it should mean nothing.
I mean, I look young. People mistake me for young all the time. To my advantage and to my disadvantage. And, in fact, when I mention my age and where I'm at in my life, people say things like "It's OK. You don't look in your mid-thirties."

This, gentle ones, is stupid.

Because whether your MatchGirl could pass for 26 or not, it doesn't make any difference at all.
You see, your MatchGirl is not 26. She hasn't been for a decade. And there is no going back.

Your MatchGirl isn't where she thought she'd be at this point in her life, it's true. She's on her way ... maybe ... in the right direction. She's making hard choices. She's trying to move forward as hard and fast as she possibly can. But today, she ponders being thirty-six. What that means and where she should be.

And as she does, and as she knows many of her readers are younger, she wishes you to live life to the fullest. To not wait around for someone else to offer a hand. To ask for what you need. To take a deep breath and work through all the scary stuff and jump right in to where you want to go.

The worse that could happen? You'll get rejected.
And that sucks.

But it sucks a lot harder to look back on parts of your life and wonder where they went.

My birthday wish, gentle readers, is for you to go as hard and long and strong as you can. It's for you to look fear in the face and laugh. It's that you will not be looking back and wondering which decisions you could have made differently.

Don't take a passive role in your life, dear ones. It's not OK.
And it won't get you anywhere.

My birthday wish is that you learn that at an earlier age than your MatchGirl did.

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