Daily Reminder # 44

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Time marches on.

I'm 63 today. Some days I feel like I'm still 2, some days I feel like maybe I'm 9 or 10 and then some days I feel like I'm 120. Still, I'm glad I'm alive.

my toothless phase...

There has been lots of sorrow in my life, but there has been joy too. There has been what there has been. If I could have skipped some events, I would have, but then I wouldn't be me, so maybe it's foolish to want to change anything.

the beach made me happy...

one of the few places where I felt safe

I hate being photographed. I spent much of my life thinking I was ugly. I know intellectually (finally) that I'm not (though I'm hideously obese so I also know intellectually that I AM... something like that). In any case... by and large, I'd rather people imagine me as they'd like me to be, so I'm not sure why I'm choosing to celebrate my 63rd birthday by posting pictures of increasing deterioration, but I guess it's some kind of Spirit dare.... or lack of anything else to post... who knows what makes my mind work...

high school...

So these are scenes from a life still in process. Process of a sort anyway.... stuck but moving....

My hippy phase.... I was such a dull nerd

But I aspired to be a hippy...

I do sometimes mourn what might have been. I wish I had understood earlier in life that my brother was a psychopath, that my mother was wrong about my body and my sexuality, that my father was a kind man, but a drunk.

This was one of the only times in my life when I

felt comfortable tucking my shirt in... Alas, my

mother had programmed me to feel fat always.

So it goes.

It makes me sad that there was so much potential that was wasted.... and it was wasted. There's no much denying that. Not that I'm a waste. I don't think that any more, though I did for a long time. But I think, freed from the bonds of toxic shame and self-hate, of insecurity, that I might have made a mark in the world. I might have found love, had children. I might have enjoyed being in a body.

probably my favorite ever picture of me

I might not have become disabled physically or mentally.... but who knows.... maybe this was my destiny. Maybe I would have wound up in the same place in any event. It doesn't really matter in the end because I am who I am. Neither the worst nor the best human in the world, but one who does the best she's able with who she is.

in AZ holding my great niece...

she's 9 now!

I think my sister's children love me. I know Diana does. I love them, which is what really matters, I guess. They are awesome.

this picture was taken by a professional photographer

named Corinne Botz about 5 years ago

as part of a photo study of

agoraphobics. I was her first subject.

way too realistic for my taste

Life has blessed me with many kind friends, an awesome therapist, kind neighbors, a home of my own (really! who would ever have dreamed that was possible!)....I'm pretty darned lucky and pretty grateful to be alive.... and to have made it through another year.

another of Corinne's photos -

with my reiki bear Raphael

Some things I'm grateful for today.

• life
• friends
• showers
• laughter
• photographs
• cooler (a little) temperatures
• another birthday

the most recent photo of me - taken about 2 years ago

Happy Birthday to me

and to all my fellow 7/10 arrivals

and

A Very Merry Unbirthday to everyone else!