They Say It’s Your Birthday

Maery Rose

They say it’s your birthday. [da dun, da dun] 
We’re gonna have a good time. [da dun, da dun]

Fifty-seven years old is kind of a boring birthday – no kind of milestone attached to it. It’s not even a catchy number like fifty-five.

I have no big plans. Nothing up my sleeve. No inspiring thoughts or big changes. I’ve been trying to come up with something wise to say for two weeks now. Nothing…

I do have a mantra though.

“Doing something is better than doing nothing.”

And I’ll go ahead and steal someone else’s wisdom that I ran across last week:

“Giving up on your goal because of one setback is like slashing your other three tires because you got a flat.” ~ Louise Hay

I had to laugh because moments before, I’d been jotting down my thoughts on a scrap of paper and had written this:

“I’ve hit a huge pothole and flattened my tire. Where the hell is the jack to hold my car up?”

(Not quite as catchy but I think the use of the word “hell” gives it some flavor)

Most of my free time lately has been spent working on organizational issues for my book. I have the problem of having fourteen years of writing to dig through and pluck out the pieces that fit and will make the best story.

To narrow things down, I hold everything I’ve written up and ask whether it answers one of these two key questions:

“What are the consequences of hiding and being silent?”
“What are the consequences of speaking your truth and not being heard or believed?”

As I write, I think there might be a third question that I’m answering. 

“What are the consequences of putting all that behind you
and deciding you don’t care how people react.
You are going to tell the story.”

– Today’s post is cross-posted on Vision and Verb –

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3 Comments

  2. Great post MAery..Happy Birthday!!! Love all your younger days images.
    I think not caring what others think and even when they heard you or not is so vital to writing. I believe when we write from our heart, the universe hears us and you make a difference.
    (I’ll come back to this post when I turn 57 in June!)

    Mary

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