Seems like most everyone I know dreads their birthday, or at least the thought of turning a year older.  Even my nephew who is going to turn 29 this year is not looking forward to the last year of his 20’s.  Perhaps our social norms have a good deal to do with how we perceive age and getting older.  But that’s not what this is about.  It’s just my ramblings of my new found perspective on how I plan to celebrate my birthday going forward.  And perhaps someone else has had these thoughts too, but it’s definitely not the norm!

I’ve always approached my birthday a little differently…I’ve been known to count down to my birthday starting six months prior to my birthday and to even celebrate all month long. I also see it as another year of triumph; another year of validating that I made the right decision so long ago to not have a second round of chemo when my sarcoma came back for the first time.  My docs at the time advised against it, but probably one of the better decisions I’ve made in my life.

This year was a little different.  As I approached my 38th birthday, I was a little more reflective and subdued about planning festivities than years past…really, I have plenty to celebrate from my 38th year on this planet, but it was a rough back half of the year.  While the nation was flipped upside down on the political front, I got my world rocked with the re-occurrence of all re-occurrences.

In late August, after an amazing weekend of biking with my CAF fam, I found out that I had a massive tumor (referred as Betsy) taking up residence in my pelvis.  Now, I’m no stranger to the cancer re-occurrence, up until this point I’ve dealt with 8 (or is it 7?) re-occurrences.  But this one; not only was it in a new spot, it was massive.  Like size of a large mango, massive.  And did I mention it was in my pelvis, not my lungs.  Long story short (more details to come in upcoming posts), Betsy has pretty much been annihilated.  Positive attitude, some radiation, positive thoughts, a little surgery, lots & lots of prayers, amazingly talented doctors & nurses, a little more positive attitude and prayers all contributed to the Betsy’s overall eviction.

So as I started to think more and more about my birthday, I likened it to how I rang in the new year in January…Good Riddance 2016, HELLO 2017!  I didn’t exactly make a big display about in my celebrating birthday this way as honestly everything just clicked in my brain as I was driving across the Bay Bridge this afternoon…but Good Riddance year 38, I learned a lot, but HELLO to the start of a kick-ass year 39!

Perhaps a bit unconventional…when I tried to explain it to my roommate, her response was, “Um, no thanks.  I don’t want to get closer to 40 any quicker than I have to!”  But one thing I’ve continually learned in every major situation in my life, it’s all about my attitude and my mindset that determine how successful, enjoyable the outcome is regardless of how grim the situation may seem.  So, why not take the same approach with start of each new year of my life??

I’m not quite sure what this 39th year has in store for me, but my gut is sensing lots of good stuff and things….and a LOT of prep for some major biking adventures come 2018…a.k.a. year 40!! 🙂