40 and Fab: Celebrate Your Birthday Even If You Don't Feel Like It

I’m turning 40 this month (s/o to all my Libras!), and I am choosing to celebrate this milestone because life is short and the length of it is not guaranteed. A couple of weeks ago I had a very different mindset. I was stressing out about my job, finding a new apartment, money and pictures. Pictures? You see, I’ve struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember and consequently, I’m extremely self-conscious about pictures. I’m not a big selfie person and definitely not a full-body shot person (sorry to all the ashy larrys who make these requests on Match.com, but it ain’t happening any time soon). When you go to Vegas with your girlfriends to celebrate your birthday (or anything else), you’re supposed to wear sexy clothes and take lots of pics, right? But I’m already heavy and pictures just make me look even bigger. How am I supposed to enjoy Vegas when I’m freaked about taking pictures with my friends? Obviously my panic about pics just snowballed into anxiety about everything else going wrong in my life and tears soon followed.

I called my mama who reminded me that a birthday is a celebration of life. In nothing else, I should celebrate that I’m still here, healthy and in my right mind. During our talk I was reminded of where I’ve been and how far I’ve come. Around this time five years, I was diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. While doctors will tell you that Hodgkin’s is a very curable cancer, it doesn’t work out that way for everyone. Most of the time I didn’t think I was going to die, but I definitely had my moments (if I told you the Blake Griffin story, you know how scared I was during certain points in my journey). 

After I completed treatment, I was dealt additional blows that I didn’t handle very well. However, like my pastor said recently, I’ve been broken but I’m still blessed. God pulled me through too much to let pics and other worries stand in the way of me feeling good about another year to do great things. We’ve got one life on this earth to live and every year we get should be celebrated for the victory it is.

P.S. 
Wanna get me something for my birthday? Make a donation to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.


And, if you got anything left over, buy ya girl a drink the next time you see me :)