I Just Wanna Celebrate

Yesterday was my birthday. Birthdays have never meant more to me than after the freebirth of my youngest. Now, I want to really truly celebrate the birth, for the person and the mother who birthed them.

As a side note, have I mentioned my new birthday party plans? When we get invited to a child's birthday party, I plan to give the gift in an attractive reusable grocery bag (instead of wrapping paper or a gift bag -- why are those like $5 a pop and a reusable gift bag is a buck, anyway???), and I give the mom a card and the child a card :)

Birthdays are even more than just a celebration of the actual birth, though, too, right? For me, it is an opportunity to reflect on the years before and the years (or, specifically, the year) to come. What have I done? What do I want to do? What do I want to be thinking about when I sit here next year reflecting? Birthdays are a new years day of sorts :)) Where have I been? Where am I at? Where do I want to go?

Yesterday was a mostly average day full of special magic, as I spent the day wondering if I wanted to be [insert daily task] into my next year of living.

I decided that I wanted to bring this new simplified, organizied, and beautified life into my next year. It is completely organic, coming from the inside out, following my bliss, going with my flow, self-guided living and learning and all :)) I definitely want more of that in my next year!

And a couple of amazing coincidences happened yesterday as well... I happened to have decided the day before that I was done with coffee -- I had been using it for liquid energy throughout the day, but I didn't really feel good about my actual drinking coffee, and I am a strong believer of natural energy, self-perpetuating energy.

The other amazing coincidence that happened is that my dad and his wonderful amazing wife who I adore (who moved to Panama July of last year) happened to not only be in the States but were down in my neck of the woods yesterday, so they stopped by my place, and I got to spend the day enjoying their company and cherishing the connection that my dad and my son cultivated all day through playing and being silly together. DEFINITELY want more of that in the new year <3

What about me? I got clear on a couple things about my direction of self in this new year.

I don't want to be so serious. There, really, is nothing in my life serious enough to be so serious about, and if something serious were to happen, the best thing I could do is not be so serious about it (Seriously? How many more times could I put the word serious in there? lol). My seriousness comes from fear, and I don't need to have that. I have faith in me, in our path, and in the universe (pronoia: a fundamental belief that the universe is conspiring in my favor). My seriousness is a kindly indicator that there is fear in there about something, and I welcome the opportunity to unpack it a bit and realign it with current trust :)) I want to laugh when my child spills something and watch while my child makes a mess and comfort when my child is upset -- not race to fix everything :) The best way I have found to do this is to be grateful. Simply grateful. If I am about to get upset that my son spilled his grape juice on the couch, I find gratitude that I have a couch, he has juice, and I have a him! Once I am grateful, the rest flows from a good place and so is only good ("good" -- another post for the future, I guess!). Last night, I was SUPER tired, but my son really wanted to stay up and watch Netflix. Now, you may not know this about me, but I am an absolute bear when I am hungry or tired -- I have a one-track mind and I lash out at anything that gets in it's way. So, I just thought about ow grateful I was to have a son, to not have a schedule that demanded I would wake up without getting enough sleep, grateful that we lived a life of self-guided learning so my son could learn from all of this, grateful for the opportunity to practice being the not-serious mama, grateful for a son who I knew would be receptive to my need for sleep when he felt me being receptive to his need for more TV... and then we agreed to watch one show, and when that one show wanted to turn into more shows, I asked if he could watch it in the bedroom on my laptop while I slept, and he agreed. A night of joy, instead of forced, crying, sleeping boy <3

I want to follow my flow, wherever it takes me. I plan to write a whole post on this, so I will just simply say for now that regardless of if its "good" or "bad", I just want to follow my flow, enjoy my joy. This is rooted in self-trust: what I want is what is best for me. Currently, I am SO in the goddess groove! I have been devouring this site and reflecting SO much on myself. I know, I said I was going to stop reading other people's stuff and find my own way -- and I have been! (I'm happy to report that last bit, hence the exclamation mark) I have found that when I limit the amount of stuff that I am reading and read really slow, that I am able to firmly ground myself in my truths and see where this new information fits into my path (not the other way around). It has been awesome -- the realization that I can still read other people's stuff, and what I have gleaned from it. I figure (going with "following my flow" and all) that if I am interested in it, it has something in it that I want more of in my life, so I determine what that is and grow it in my life :)) It's so exciting!

I like the new year's theme so far: self trust and following the good stuff.

I am partial to 3s -- I think they make a big-picture well-rounded and thoughtful, so I am going to say that my third theme for this year is continuing with my past's path. I have so much wonderfulness from my past and present that I am grateful for. I have these wonderful family living philosophies (radical unschooling and consensual living), and I have this amazing beautiful path that I have built behind me of experiences and self-reflections that are paving the way into the future. What a blessed life I have lived and will live and am living.

This is what the path behind me and before me looks like: personalized, intentional, beautiful.