Make A Wish!

This weekend marked my 31st birthday.  I had the usual few preceding days of anxiety that comes with my birthdays.  What will I do?  What have I done with my life?  Where am I going?  Whose going to do what with me?  And of course, the strongest feeling of anxiety came from this initial unshakable feeling of what I will call 'romantic loneliness'.  In my head I kept singing to myself, 'one is the loneliest number, that you've ever seen'.  I literally had to ask God to remove that feeling of uneasiness.  So that I could function and enjoy my last week of being 30.

I had planned a beautiful weekend for myself, spa services at the Peninsula and a hotel in the Gold Coast, but all I kept thinking about was who would take me to dinner and hopefully spend some quality time with me afterwards.  Side note:  you are free to mentally add quotation marks around 'quality time'.  Now when I first booked these services and the room, I was so excited.  I had planned to do something special for myself, by myself.  The dinner reservations were made for two, with the expectation and assumption I could get at least one person to join me.  However, with that said, I found myself becoming more and more anxious about the potential 'male escort' part.  Who was going to sit with me over a romantic steak dinner?

I had two options, Mr. Friend and the Serbian.  They both increasingly became bad options.  This is where I believe my anxiety rested.  Although I spent countless hours trying to figure out how I would juggle both of them, if they did decide to spend some time, as my special day approached, it occurred to me that neither would come through.  I admit to being a bit salty.  It was my birthday.  Any man interested in me would want to make sure he did something for 'my day', right?  I was wrong.

Mr. Friend essentially stalked me at my boot camp class (I hope he doesn't make that a habit).  I invited him to dinner to which he started stumbling on his words about he has to see what his aunt was doing.  Hunh??  Yesterday I got a 'Happy Birthday' text message (you know how I feel about that).  The Serbian hasn't been spoken to since Thursday (I think he was annoyed that I went to the Bulls game without him.  It seems silly, but I really believe that by his attitude when I spoke to him that night at the game).

But the story isn't about them, the story is about everyone else.  In particular, my friends, to be more specific, my girls.  While I was sulking about my romantic life, my girl K. Hubb was planning a fun girls' night out for me.  She did this in less than a week.  We started the night at Roadhouse Rita's.  Two words:  Mechanical Bull.  Then ended the night cuttin' up at t's Bar Restaurant.  All in all, I had a marvelous time.  It was a beautiful surprise and absolutely fun!

On my actual birthday, yesterday, I enjoyed an hour aromatherapy massage and a holistic foot treatment at The Peninsula. I felt pampered and even slept in the pedicure chair while receiving a hot stone massage on my legs and feet.  It was heavenly.  My girlfriend Lorraine later met me at my hotel (The Sutton Place) and we went to McCormick & Schmicks for happy hour cocktails and appetizers, then Gibson's for dinner and finally The Whiskey for after-dinner drinks.  All in all I had a absolute wonderful birthday!  My girls really came through.

I received messages from  some of everybody via text, Facebook and direct phone calls.  At least 2 exes sent texts and I even received birthday wishes from my old best friend who I haven't spoken to in almost a year due to our equal stubbornness.  His text literally brought tears to my eyes.  All this is to say, I felt incredibly loved this weekend.  It may sound funny, but I felt safe and secure.  Like all IS well with the world.  Even the downpour of rain yesterday, didn't dampen my spirits.  It cleared up by the time I left the spa.  Everything went so well, for a second, I thought about dying.  I know it sounds morbid. But when really good things happen to me in bulk, I always wonder, what is the backlash.  I felt so euphorically good, that the antithesis would be a freak car accident, or I would twist my ankle on my too-high platform shoes.  Call me a pessimist, but everything was so good.

My friends came through.  That's all I keep repeating in my head.  They came through.  They took care of me.  And they loved me.  I cannot say how good it feels.  God's message undoubtedly was/is, you ARE loved.  You ARE appreciated, look around.  As I fell asleep last night in this hotel room I had hoped would be shared with a gentleman friend, I realized, I did not miss a thing.  Nothing more was needed for this weekend to be perfect.  I originally planned everything with the intention of spending time with/by myself.  How I turned that into drama about boys, I cannot even begin to tell you.  What I can tell you is, on my 31st birthday this year, I was not alone.  Even when I was alone, I was never alone.