Sunday, September 24, 2006

The Birthday Wagon Train Takes Off Today

“The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today is my birthday and I chose this picture to commemorate it, since to me, it has a very nomadic feel. I look as if I just stepped off a wagon train after traversing across the wild, wild west for months on end with my family, who of course, were heading to California during the gold rush, hoping to get rich and make a better life for the family. With my dark eyes and hair, I could even be the little Indian girl they picked up along the way and tried to civilize by putting me in a "modern" dress.

If I were traveling cross country in a covered wagon, you must know that I would have argued, bitched and complained about not wanting to go because it would have been hot, dusty and bumpy. And most likely, I only went because my mother promised me a new dress for my birthday; I wouldn't have wanted to be the laughingstock of the wagon train wearing the Laura Ingalls contraption I have on in this picture.

In the real world of my childhood, we never made it too far out of the Bronx and here I am, thirty-nine years later still waiting for that damn new dress and ironically, still on a wagon train of sorts, traversing the country.

This is the last year in my thirties. I have one year until I turn forty and dammit, I plan on making it a good one. I have done a lot in the past two years; more traveling than I've ever done in my life, experiencing things that some people don't get to do in a lifetime and I am truly blessed to have had such fortune.

But now, with forty looming on the horizon, I have to be more focused on making the last year in my thirties a memorable one. Come forty, I'll have to be all grown up and shit. So, I'll be going into my thirty-ninth year behind the wheel of a truck, driving across the country, steering myself where I want. Freedom is something I've always enjoyed but now, I have the tools to take that freedom to another level.

I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing right now (well, okay, except sitting on a beach somewhere counting my millions, in increments of $100 bills), but I feel like I should have a plan. So, I have concocted a loose plan of sorts which involves lots of traveling, making of money and memories and very little of settling - down or otherwise.

I will be doing less of what I don't want and more of what I do. I will be spending time with the people who mean the most to me with those I like and love being my top priority; my family, my closest and dearest friends and My Eddie.

This year is going to start off on a Wicked note and I'm very much looking forward to being on the wagon train that is taking me there. See you all on the prairie!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

yes, happy belated b-day!