So today was supposed to be my final post. I have the entire post all planned out in my head, but then as usual ‘life’ happened and I now feel slightly compelled to write about that rather. So I hope you don’t mind, but it looks like I will have to extend my challenge just a wee bit.

I have always loved my birthdays🎂🍰. So much so that I spent my 20’s and 30’s having huge parties every year. What better excuse to have all the people you love around you on the same day? Queen for a day…what more could an enneagram 4/Gemini princess ask for? 👸 Unfortunately, the downside of having big parties is people always cancelling at the last minute or even worse not even bothering to cancel and just not pitching. I have to admit as a highly sensitive person this has always been a pet hate of mine and something that has continually hurt me. 😱😭 My logical head says it’s just life, it doesn’t mean they don’t love you…but for my heart it still suxs. (How could you possibly not want to see the princess on her birthday?😞) For me, birthdays have always been that wonderful time to catch up with friends, especially the friends that you often don’t get to see as much as you would like. It’s like the ONE time if the year that you just always make an effort.

The last party I had was for my 40th and although it was a lovely evening with some very wonderful friends turning up, as always I had an incident of one friend not pitching. Not only did she not pitch, she didn’t even send so much as a text message to say she wouldn’t be coming. And to make matters worse I never heard from her again after that. (It is truly amazing how many friends fall completely out of your life when you stop initiating contact😰). Anyway, I knew she was ok as a mutual friend told me that she had just gone away for the weekend. This mutual friend also seemed a bit dumbfounded that I had felt hurt. The implication being that I should just ‘get over it’. Of course, he was right, as any psychologist or spiritual teacher will tell you ‘blaming’ other people for your feelings of unhappiness is never a healthy behaviour. At the end of the day we need to take responsibility for choosing what we are going to allowed to affect us. We need to learn how to balance and enhance our own ‘chi’. 😁😎 Such wise truths, but at that point in my life it was very difficult to put into practice (Ummm…especially if you had recently spent a shit load of money buying birthday present for before mentioned friend, a few weeks prior😤)

So it was after that experience I made a healthy life choice for myself for the intermittent future. No more birthday parties. You see in my mind if I was able to control the circumstances then I could successfully stop/limit or prevent any future disappointment or hurt. I also thought it would be a good idea for me to learn to let go of the idea of having lots of people around me to feel my own sense of value and worth. I have to admit my plan worked well for two successive years. For the last two years, I have simply chosen one or two of my closest friends and just hang out with them. Last year I went ice-skating with Ntombi and Rachel and it was the best birthday ever. Low key, no expectations, no disappointments just time with two of my besties. This year with both my friends gone I made plans with a new friend; we were going to go to the Michael Buble and Adele cover show. I felt safe.😁 (Birthday disappointment successfully avoided again. Check ✔.) Unfortunately, the universe clearly didn’t think I had quite learnt this lesson yet. ( and it was now finally time to learn it). My friend, through no fault of her own, had to cancel our plans and couldn’t make it.

I didn’t feel the usual devastation that I would have felt in the past. I actually felt fine…and just reminded myself that nature abhors a void and that I would find someone to come with me. So I made a concerted effort to message other friends to try and find a replacement. Unfortunately, everyone, although very grateful that I had asked them already had plans. In the back, if my mind I kind of thought: “Worst comes to worst I will take my adopted mum Charlotte with.” On visiting Charlotte the evening before, I jokingly suggested she come with me to the concert to which she responded: “oh please noooooo I really wouldn’t enjoy something like that” Random realisation: “oh shit, I’m going to spend my 43rd birthday completely by myself.”

In the Glennon Doyle Melton video that I posted a few weeks ago she speaks about a line in a book called “When Things Fall Apart” by Pema Chödrön. It says: “If you can sit in with the hot loneliness for 1.6 seconds today when yesterday you could only sit with it for 1 second then that is the journey of the warrior.” I joked with my Charlotte that tomorrow I might actually have to sit with my hot loneliness for 4 hours and, to be honest, I was still actually completely ok with it. I was strong.💪💪 I was a warrior. I could do this.👍

So yesterday, the morning of my birthday, I woke up at 5.30 and was hit by the realization that I wouldn’t get my early morning birthday calls from my two mums (they had both always wanted to be the “first” caller of the day😂) and that I might actually have to attend this stupid concert all by myself. Honestly, it just hit like a thunderbolt⚡⚡⚡ and I sobbed my eyes out for about ummm 30 minutes. Honestly, I have never felt so freaking’ alone. The hot loneliness was just too much for me to bear. “I didn’t want to be a bloody warrior!!! I wanted to have a fun night out with just one friend” I wrote angrily in my morning pages, telling God that this was not cool at all. What infuriated me the most was I had been so bloody excited to write my final 40th post…I was so amped, so positive and now I just couldn’t. Just as I finished my writing I got the most beautiful message from another new friend, Natasha that I had met at Toastmasters a few months ago. I thanked her and told her of my dilemma.😵 I even asked her if she could come but her husband had organised a surprise dinner out for her birthday on Monday. Thank God she picked up the phone and called me. As is always the case with me, simply connecting with someone is what I need to help stem the tide of tears. She just listened, reminded me I was loved and then suggested I simply put a post up saying I had an extra ticket; because the chances of someone else feeling lonely out there were pretty high. I admitted to her that I had actually thought of that but the absolute shame it elicited in me was overwhelming.😳 I mean honestly announcing to the world that you were “alone and friendless” on your birthday was a little more than I could bear at that point. I would rather have turned up alone to the concert than actually admit on a public platform that I was feeling alone (crazy hey?😖)

Natasha imployed me to “be brave” and I assured her I would (consider it). Internal prayer being: “Oh please God don’t make me have to do that!!! I am begging you! I am not that brave”

No sooner than I had put the phone down did I get a message from my toastmaster’s mentor, Penny, wishing me happy birthday. I swallowed my pride and called her to ask if she would like to join me. (Attempting not to sound desperate at all😉)

She said that would be wonderful and I was over the moon with relief. I didn’t have to be ‘Fannie no mates on her birthday” 🤗

A few hours later I arrived at my hairdresser’s and just as I was about to sit down I jokingly turned round to ask: “So where is my cake?” Only to see Jhane walking towards me with a little cake box. I was so touched I burst into tears (again.) See I cry when happy as well.😂 
. I have an awesome hairdresser. 😍

As I was leaving the hairdresser I got a call from Liza, who I have also met through Toastmasters. We have never actually met outside of Toastmasters but she regularly comments on my posts and I have so appreciated her support and encouragement. (She is also a kick-arse public speaker who inspires me with her confidence and ease of speaking publically)

Liza declares: “I have decided that you and I are going to be friends. And not just Facebook friends…real friends that hang out and go for coffee and stuff.”

That declaration was the absolute best birthday present ever. Her reaching out and connecting just felt amazing and was literally an answer to a prayer ! I am such a big believer in making the effort to see friends, my ‘girl dates’ have become such an important part of my self-care routine and I am always making the effort to step out of my comfort zone and ask friends out. (I am a Gemini after all and we do love people😍). In the last few years I have had to learn to let go of some friends and simply accept that maybe friends come for a reason, a season or a life time. So when I meet someone I connect with and totally enjoy hanging out with I will initiate contact a few times and then if nothing happens I ask them to simply contact me when they have time. Its been a hard fact of life that some people never have time. I have had to learn to let go, in love and know that thats ok….that is simply their reality. I dont need to continually put the effort into keeping up contact with everyone. (Incidently one of my “life coaching” goals set when I was 33 was ‘contact and connect with 2 friends every single day’. I was trying to be “loving and supporting” but it was absolutely exhausting. ) So I have to learn to have faith that if a friend truly wants me in their life they would make the point of reaching out, at some point. Unfortunately this has resulted in my friendship pool dwinderling quite significantly over the last few years. What I specifically loved and adored about Rachel and Ntombi was that they always seemed to be on the same page as me when it came to this. It was such a relief with them not to always be the one initiating contact. I have so missed that this last month. Liza reaching out truly was awesome🤗❤🌈

So I then spent a wonderful afternoon with my 3 adopted mums, was spoilt with the most beautiful cake and then headed off to the show to meet Penny.

We were seated at a table of four that we were meant to share with another couple. (Incidentally I was also very happy to discover we had a young blonde Ryan Gosling look-alike for a waiter. What more could a girl ask for on her birthday?😍)

Soon after we sat down our adjoining couple arrived and I just immediately loved them. They already knew Penny and I was so touched by how the man introduced “his wife”. I thought maybe they were newlyweds as he seemed so incredibly in love and proud to show her off. It was so very sweet. As a couple, I was so drawn to them. He had this bubbly, smiley face that you couldn’t help but want to be friends with and she had this beautiful, calm sereneness about her that made you think she had a ‘happiness secret’ she needed to share. The wife and I both had this feeling like we had met before, but we couldn’t figure out were. You know that instant comfortableness you feel with someone new. Together they were so clearly attentive and in love with each other. I was shocked to discover they had been married for years. I love meeting couples like this…they remind me that it is possible to find your soul mate and to build a happy life with them. About halfway through the show, just after the wife and I had swapped phone numbers and decided we were going to be “friends”.😁 Penny leaned over and told me that this beautiful, gorgeous woman had stage 4 breast cancer. I have to admit this hit me like a sledgehammer. I sat there slightly tipsy with depressingly sad Adele sounds being belted out and all I wanted to do was cry. In all honesty, my pain body was activated big time. All those emotions of dealing with my mum’s cancer just overwhelmed me. Sometimes life truly and utterly suxs. I kept trying to talk myself round but unfortunately as I have come to accept about myself …when I need to cry, I need to cry. 😭So I excused myself and called my bestie Rachel in the Uk. (She is used to my calls) I just cried for a couple of minutes at the random unfairness of the world and how beautiful this woman was, how amazing they were as a couple and how crappy bloody cancer can be. After I finished talking to her and had calmed down Ryan Gosling who had come out to get something from his car came and asked if he was alright. I blurted out what I had just found out and he said yes he knew as one of the waitresses’ there was her son’s girlfriend.

He then tapped me sweetly on the shoulder and said: “But she is having a good night tonight ” (Gorgeous and wise😱)

Random thought: “I know BUT I’m sitting out here crying.” His point, however was made. 😉So I pulled myself together and went back to our table. It wasn’t easy at first but I kept watching her and seeing her absolute joy at being there listening to that beautiful music. She was 100% present, in that moment and happy. The way we all should be. As I sat there I had this amazing epiphany about my lovely Anna that had died in 2016. She had known she was dying and she had never told any of us. She did, of course, tell random strangers….like my Char when she stayed with me a few months before she died. She however, made Zukie swear she wouldn’t tell me. Oh and one of my mum’s friends….who she also swore to secrecy.  I had to deal with a lot of residual anger about this and I could never understand how she could do that to us…how she could keep it hidden from the people that loved her the most. It felt like such a betrayal. We truly adored her. I felt like she had robbed us of that gift of time. As I sat there ‘willing myself” to be happy and strong it’s like I just got it: It had nothing to do with us. It was literally like I heard her voice saying: “You see my baby, this is why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to have to deal with all your sadness as well.” I had a lightbulb moment. 💡 She just wanted to be happy and joyful..and that was her right and her choice. It probably would not be the choice I would ever make (because quite frankly I would never be able to keep that secret) but it really and truly was her way of surviving it.

So after that, I was pretty soon able to re-align myself and enjoy the beautiful evening with my wonderful new friends.

So it is indeed clear that the universe abhors a void. All we need to do is have a little faith, and when we don’t have faith calling a good friend to remind us is always beneficial. Thanks again for all the lovely birthday messages it appears indeed that I am not Fannie no-mates. Working on not forgetting that again.

Much love 
🤗🎉🎆🎁🔥🌟🌠🌈🐝🌷