Presents and Presence

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Today is my 50th birthday! There have been presents, an egg chair for the garden from my parents, new vinyl LP’s that I love from Michael, a pretty necklace from my girlfriend to name just a few. We went out for breakfast. Later there will be cake. It has so far been a truly lovely day.

Usually I have mixed feelings about my birthday but not this year. This year I am totally embracing it. I have been telling Michael for weeks now that it is my birthday month and ALL about MEEEEEE! He rolls his eyes and goes along with it. He is a good man. I love him.

I thought I would hate the idea of being 50. I wasn’t that keen on the idea of being 40 but oddly over the last few months I have started to feel really good about it. It feels like a new chapter and to be honest I am more than happy to leave my 40’s behind.

They have not all been bad. The first half or so was amazing. Really the happiest of my life. As I wrote in this post, Gifts, earlier this month sometimes I look back on that time and don’t recognise the happy, content, loved women I see there. What happened to her? The answer is lots of things and none of them were good. They caused her pain and grief and heartbreak and loneliness and sadness on such an intense scale that it seemed to eat her alive at times.

The last 3 years of my 40’s have been the worst years of my life ever. Nothing else comes close to how fucking brutal and bleak it has been whilst trying to pretend that I was happy. Not that it was all terrible. There were also some wonderful glorious moments too, meeting The Gentleman and having the short time we had together. I shall always be happy and grateful for that and for him. He was a true gift. Moving house, best decision ever. Getting my beloved doggo, truly a gift of joy and happiness on 4 small legs. But mostly those 3 years have been dark and fucking awful and I never want to experience a time like that again

There are, of course, no promises. Life is unpredictable and the world is quite frankly a raging ball of utter madness at the moment but today I am 50 and I feel like things are finally changing for the better and I am leaving that sadness behind me so having a big birthday, starting a new decade of my life seems timely. It seems like a gift in and of itself, an opportunity to set the end of my 40’s aside properly and look forward into the future and what comes next.

I have love in my life. A beautiful girlfriend, such an unexpected but wonderful present to have appeared in my life, and I have a loving partner, husband, in Michael and together we are working out what our relationship looks like now. That makes me so happy.

So I am ready for my 50’s. I am actually excited for the future but most importantly of all happy and content in the here and now and that I have come to learn is THE most important thing of all. No one is guaranteed a tomorrow, so enjoying today and being grateful for all the wonder within is what makes for a good time. That it not always easy to do mind you, I am an impatient person and I can see what the future might be like and that makes me want to spring ahead and have it all now. Also I am 50 now, I am not going to live forever.

Yeah I know, 50 is nothing really. My old Dad is 85 and still running his own business.

But now I am rambling. So time to stop this. I am off to sit my bruised, sore bottom in my hot tub (There was a birthday spanking, well paddling really, along with 50 strokes from the cane, as requested by me. I say these things and then in the moment when it hurts like hell I always think what a silly idea it was but also, I loved it. It made me cry, in a good way, and the orgasm I got afterwards was intense. Not all presents come wrapped, some just require your presence.

Happy 50th Birthday to me!