Birthdays are roughly as arbitrary. It's just another day of the year. But it does mean something within the context of my life. It marks how many cycles of these patterns that I've been through. As a person who suffers from depression, it marks another year that I've managed to stay alive.

I haven't been one much for celebrating my birthday. Even as a kid, it was a little rough. I wasn't well liked. People didn't show up for my parties, when I bothered to try to throw them. Maybe that left a sour taste in my mouth. Maybe I internalized some of the (intense) dislike that other children had for me. And when I became an adult, I stopped observing my birthday almost altogether.

Well, not quite.. I went the other way with it. The day would come, and I would purposefully avoid people, and not tell anyone when I did have to be around people - and I would pay attention to how few people actually knew and cared enough to reach out (without social media to remind them) ; purposefully abstained from doing anything fun. Went out of my way to treat myself poorly, to make a point that this day was not special. That I was not special. Almost like I was punishing myself for having been born. And I would be sad.. and alone.. and often cry myself to sleep.

Fucked up, right?

I'm sure I got dragged out to birthday dinners or had pie with candles in it, but I was still fighting against the idea of celebrating myself. I'm still fighting the idea. But I don't want to anymore.

It wasn't until the last couple years that I started to crack some of the ice on my shell and try to warm my heart to the idea of celebrating myself a little. In 2022, my friends invited me to join them for a camping trip on Grand Island, knowing that it was the same weekend as my birthday. I waffled for a long time about going, and only fully decided to join them probably the day before we were to set out. I only barely managed to throw a pack and supplies together in time to rush off and meet them at the ferry before it departed.

There was a kind of a party atmosphere that weekend. Swam in Superior during the day. Drinks were packed in and we enjoyed some hard lemonades as the day progressed. Got a roaring campfire going and had a lot of fun taking turns sawing up logs with a very handy and impressive foldable hand saw. Some of the people knew or found out that it was my birthday and gave me the typical happy wishes. I didn't want to make it about me, but I wasn't so alone. It was nice. And it's a memory that I hold very fondly.

Last year for my birthday, I didn't do much of anything special, but I decided that I wanted to give 36-year-old me (now) the gift of a healthier body. So I set myself some goals. As far as I can remember, that was the first time that I had decided to do something like that.

A year has gone by and I wish that I could give myself (then) a hug. I really appreciate the work I've been putting in, and - in some weird, separated way, as if I'm talking about someone else who did all this - I deserve credit for what I've accomplished.

And to that point, I also deserve to celebrate myself and my successes.

I've been doing a fair deal of self-reflection recently in writing this post. Thinking about everything that's happened in the last year, and all the years before it. For all the progress I've made, I'm finding myself to still be in rough mental shape. Moreso than I thought. Funny how we think we have a handle on things, eh? I put on a brave face most of the time, but boi, do I keep getting stuck in the mud.

But the more I reflect, the more realizations I make, like the ones above, and see how much mental healing work I still have yet to do.

Even the success that I've had in the past year is bittersweet. While I have been focusing on changing and improving myself for my own sake - out of a desire to be healthier, fitter, stronger, ... and well, yes, more attractive - , there is some part of me that tells me that I'm not worthy of attention unless I am making these changes. Perhaps even that my life isn't worth celebrating unless I'm making something of it.

And here I am, a year later, successful, but still struggling to feel worthy.

While it is impressive what I've accomplished this year, that doesn't really make me any more or less worthy of anything. My worth is bigger than that. It's more than what I do. It's more than what goals I set and whether I achieve them or not. When I think about it logically - all my positive qualities and the kind of person I am - I know the depth of my value, and that people are lucky to get to know me if they can.

Being alive is a feat all on its own. It's a thing that warrants celebration for its own sake. But I am also not so unspecial as I keep trying to convince myself. And my life is worth celebrating. And I need to get comfortable with that thought.

As a side note, I have started looking at mental health counseling options, but it looks like a lot of practitioners that service my area are online only. I need full privacy to have those kinds of conversations and don't have that in my current living situation, so if I can't locate an in-person option, I would wait until I'm in my own space again to attempt to establish with someone. It's been on my mind for a little while now and I do think I'm in a place where I would benefit from having a professional to talk to.

That isn't an idle statement either. Things are a little hectic at the moment, but I should be able to start moving into my own place here before the end of the month. Once all of the major things have been taken care of and I'm settled in, I will see about getting some help.

As for my Birthday Resolutions, I am going to start making this a regular thing. I'm looking forward to what else I can accomplish in a year.

It looks like I didn't state all of my goals very well in my "See Me in a Year" post, but I detailed them in my Half-Birthday post:

• Original Goal:

  • No alcohol at home for 6 months.

• Stretch Goal:

  • No alcohol at all for 1 year.

• How I did:

  • I have been 100 % sober the whole year, without a drop of alcohol, since August 10th of 2023 (at around 2 am). I intend to stay sober until at least tonight, or perhaps the weekend that follows.

• Self-Assessment:

  • Quitting alcohol is probably one of the healthiest things I've done for myself as an adult. No more stolen focus. No more mindless eating. Still some issues with sleep at times, but there have been some pretty important improvements there as well.

  • I've enjoyed being the DD and being in the presence of (some) drunk people (mostly friends) while not being intoxicated myself. Specifically, the contrast that I feel being in full control of myself when they are not - having the knowledge that every choice that I make is made with my full will (however much that actually means in the first place), and that I've been in control of myself and my actions the whole time.

• How about the future?

  • I do not intend to stay fully sober (I have plans to drink some very fine Sandkheg's Hide whiskey that I bought and have been eagerly waiting to consume in good company), but I do think I should keep drinking to a minimum. I think it would be a very wise idea to continue to impose a No-Alcohol-At-Home policy, or at the very least, no alcohol alone.

  • There is a certain amount of shame that comes with the sober token system - Where you get a token at certain milestones, and if you fall off the wagon, you reset back to zero. I'm not a fan of that system, because I feel that it encourages an all-or-nothing kind of mindset. That if you slip up a little, then you've already fucked up, so might as well get hammer-fuckin-wasted lots while you're still at zero, and then try-try again back down the path of attempting to be sober. I don't dig it. I think in some cases, it would be more beneficial to aim for moderation. It's not as easy to track as drinking or not drinking, but it allows for fluctuations in willpower and changing circumstances more readily without such a heavy burden of shame to wrench your heart along the way.

• Original Goal:

  • Reduce my bodyweight to 140 lbs (and aim for 20-25% fat)

• Stretch Goal:

  • Reduce my bodyweight to 130 lbs

• How I did:

  • On August 8, I weighed in at 63.35 kilos according to my bathroom scale. That's 139.66 lbs. The number itself is a little arbitrary, and I'm a little bit up from that presently, but the goal was more about getting myself to a healthier weight using sustainable methods, for the most part.

  • Based on skinfold calipers, I am somewhere between 23.8 and 25.5 % fat. If you go by my electronic bathroom scale, I am 28.7 %, and based off my circumferences using a Bagel Pie Fit, I am around 27 %. Body fat percentage is hard to get a good measure of using only one metric, and it varies by person due to variances in body composition. My bathroom scale would of course tell me I have a higher fat percentage because I store a lot of it in my thighs. It makes sense that the skinfold calipers say I'm much less because I don't store as much fat in the areas it checks. And the circumferences don't take into account my muscle composition. So let's say I'm somewhere around 26 % as a rough average between the lowest and highest. I would call that a success.

• Self-Assessment:

  • I got to where I am today with effort, but effort that I have enjoyed.

    • I tracked some kind of activity on about 270 days, though I certainly also had some very active days where I didn't track anything. That's more than 70 % of the days in the year where I spent at least 30 minutes doing something active on purpose.

    • I tracked hiking or walking on 242 days. So not every day, but more often than not. While I don't necessarily love walking, I do enjoy getting outside and seeing the trees and the life around me... and walking to the cemetery to hang out and be a grown-up goth kid (I have never been full goth, though I do appreciate the aesthetic).

    • In the last month or two, I've started intermittent jogging when I go for my walks. While there has been some research to say that you will burn roughly the same number of calories whether you walk (at a fast pace) or run a mile, you can cover more distance more quickly when you are moving faster, which means you can get more calories burned in the same amount of time as walking (of course)... But more importantly, it is beneficial both to heart and lung health and capacity as well as improving muscle fitness through the whole body. I like to pretend I'm preparing myself for a zombie apocalypse situation.

  • I'm also ok with not meeting the stretch goal on this one. The last 10 lbs from 150 to 140 were trickier than the first 30. Now that I'm at a lower weight, my body is a lot more sensitive to what I put into it. I still let myself eat whatever I want (yes, including cheesecake), I just have to be more careful about how much, or make sure to balance indulgence with matching effort in purposeful exercise.

  • I apparently look significantly different. My folks keep joking that if I turn sideways I disappear. For people who I've been living with all the way along and seeing me every day to notice and say something. That's something.

  • I feel different. I am a lot more comfortable in my body now. I was starting to get quite uncomfortable in the tightness of my skin and clothes.

  • I feel better now, in general (eating healthier for the most part and not drinking are also a big part of this.)

  • I am not fond of how my skin hangs empty off of me (very apparent when I am in some upside-down positions when gravity is at its cruelest), but I am trying to keep a positive mindset about it. My body has never been perfect and it never will be, but it's not unpleasant, the feel of my skin, and I'm usually clothed, or not positioned in the more unflattering angles very often, so it is somewhat negligible. But I did notice it, and I know how people may feel when they see themselves this way. And I feel sorry for people who really are thin who think they are fat, and I feel bad for people who are "overweight" by statistics but healthier than those skinny folks by far, and feel solidarity with people who embrace their bodies just as they are in whatever shape they may take.

  • I was ok with how I looked before I started this, but I have always wanted to get muscly. This is a choice for my own enjoyment. And I'm finding ways to enjoy the process just as much as I am enjoying the results.

• How about the future?

  • It would be cool to see if I could hit 130. That would bring me back down to early high school or maybe even middle school. I don't think I have any idea what my weight was before that, and it doesn't matter much anyway, because I was still growing, so my body is different now in ways that can't be compared to that meaningfully. But I would want to be a buff 130, which may be harder to do than dropping the 40 this year. Maybe aim for 20 % fat and see what that looks and feels like and how difficult it would be to maintain.

• Original Goal:

  • Read the rest of The Stream of American History Volume 1

• Stretch Goal:

  • Read Volume 2 of The Stream of American History

• How I did:

  • I completed the first volume in the first half of the year, and I made it through 388 of 912 pages of the second volume. That's a little over 40 % which is pretty good considering that the summer months have been significantly busier than the winter ones.

• Self-Assessment:

  • I am very happy to have finished reading this book and to have started into the next. Both for the contents of the books themselves, and what I have learned from them, but also for the fact that I finally followed through on something that I said I would do when the books were lent to me in the first place.

  • It has been a worthy read. I understand some things now better than I did before, learned some very interesting pieces of information and picked up some new (to me) words, and even though I may not have retained most of the finer details, I have a sense for some of the things that happened in the flow of time on this continent. I can go searching for more information about specific events as things become relevant. But part of that information battle is knowing there's something to look up in the first place.

  • I don't feel bad about not having met the stretch goal. I feel like I could have, but I wanted to relax some days and read other things, and I'm not faulting myself for that.

• How about the future?

  • I can easily see myself reading these books again at some point (after I finish the second one), or finding more up-to-date material that covers things that have been happening in the past three quarters of a century.

  • I want reading to be a regular part of my life and I have a lot of other books waiting in the wings, so I will make another reading goal for the year to come.

Bonus Activities:

• I started doing chin-ups after my walks and can do 2 full chin-ups from the bottom with my arms fully extended, all the way to the top. I started by just doing negative chin-ups until I was able

• I was able to do one full PULL-UP with good form. I had to look up the difference between pull-ups and chin-ups and am finally using the terms correctly now. I don't think I've ever been able to do a pull-up before, so this is ~big~.

• Went snowshoeing twice.

  • One of those times being a very intense 7-mile trek, gradually uphill, with a lot of ups and downs along the way through the woods along a river's edge, that took about 5 hours to complete. Some BEAUTIFUL sights to see that day. Would love to do it again even though my legs were so angry at me by the end of it.

• Went snowboarding once.

  • This one I'm particularly proud of because it took some self-coordination. i.e.: Me setting up an appointment to get my snowboard refurbished, buy boots and bindings and other gear (that would benefit from use outside of snowboarding as well).

  • I hadn't been snowboarding since high school, which makes it easily more than a decade since my last ride ... probably more like 17 years.

  • My whole body ached for days, nearly a full week to be fully recovered after how intense of an active workout that was. Mainly in my abs - So much twisting and jump-waddling to move!

  • Another thing I would LOVE to do again and am already looking forward to the winter for.

• After being single (keeping myself as such purposefully) for a bit over two years, I met someone who I respect, admire, desire, adore... who likes me back... and we started dating.

  • It's been a roller coaster and a slow burn so far. But I've learned a lot about myself in the process. I've had some really good opportunities for growth, and to put to the test some of my personal values and theories, and put to use some of the various mental skills that I've been building.

  • We've got similar relationship histories, so we're both taking things slowly to make sure we're not rushing into anything and repeating past mistakes. Allowing time to get to know each other properly. We know how we feel about each other. But feelings are easy. The hard part is figuring out if we've got what it takes to make it in the long run, if we're looking for the same things, compatible in the ways we both need. But I already see a lot of potential there - to an extent I don't think I've felt before.

  • I'm looking forward to seeing where things go with her. I'm determined to do things right this go around, and will course-correct along the way as needed to try to do the right thing, whatever that may be.

• Started teaching myself how to play piano.

  • I had a previous partner who encouraged me to play and taught me some things back in 2017 or so, but after the relationship burnt out, I dropped off without access to a keyboard.

  • When I realized that most of the typing that I do on a computer is done without looking at the keyboard, and especially the fact that I have one that has no labels on it (and is programmable), that I should easily be able to figure out and build a mental map of the keys on a piano given enough time. I know what I was like with keyboards when I was first starting out, and pianos only use 7 letters! (It is so much more complicated than that, but the concept of the keys/notes & octaves is pretty straight-forward.)

• Went out kayaking 4 times

  • The first of those being in MARCH (the 13th). The reason why this is significant is because it was still basically winter up here, though most of the snow had gone. The water was still frigid when I dipped a hand in to test it as I was paddling along. I wore a wetsuit under my clothes in case I fell in, because that would have been significant risk of hypothermia.

• Went out windsurfing 5 times and significantly improved my skills.

  • I can now stay upright on the board and get some real wind in my sail.

  • The fastest I've gone so far is 10.1 knots (getting close to 12 mph).

  • I am finally starting to get the hang of steering the board and sailing upwind.

  • I still fall down a lot and need to work on transitions on the board (tacking and jibing).

  • With how much I've been enjoying it, I may start looking in to finding some more modern equipment so that I have a better chance to succeed and progress with a setup that is better suited to my body.

• Read several books to completion.

  • The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross - Finished in September '23

  • (Main Goal) The Stream of American History Volume I by A. Baldwin - Finished January '24 (started in 2017)

  • Carrie by Stephen King - Finished February '24 (in less than 24 hours)

  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck - Finished March '24

  • American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition by Neil Gaiman - Finished July '24

  • The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery - (English Version) Finished August '24

• Became a U.S. citizen.

  • I've been living in the country almost 30 years now and had been waffling about it for various reasons, but finally decided I wanted to be able to vote, and I also want to be able to leave the country for any duration of time, and still be able to come back to live if that's what the cards of life deal me.

• Voted for the first time.

  • They didn't have any stickers :/

• Went for a solo, multi-day motorcycle trip through several states.

  • I was working on a post about this trip, but it had fallen by the wayside with how busy I've been recently. When I get it finished, I'll post it > here < .

Goals for the year to come:

• Original Goal:

  • Stay under 150 while increasing muscle mass.

  • Go through the New Rules of Lifting (for women) program all the way to completion.

• Stretch Goal:

  • Reduce weight to 130 lbs and roughly 20% body fat.

• Original Goal:

  • Finish the rest of The Stream of American History Volume 2

• Stretch Goal:

  • Read the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe and William Shakespeare

  • Flesh out my personal book inventory and start reading some of the ones I already own and take personal notes about whether or not things are worth another read (and get rid of books I won't read again).

• Original Goal:

  • List all boxed Lego sets for sale

• Stretch Goal:

  • Build, verify, and list other Lego sets for sale (or otherwise disperse my collection)

• Original Goal:

  • Finish CG corgi project

• Stretch Goal:

  • Start another CG project

• Original Goal:

  • Do more art!

• Stretch Goal:

  • Create an Etsy shop (or similar) and post some of my work for sale.

Yesterday, I donated blood, went sailing for the first time, and had a shot of whiskey and a wonderful night with the woman I love.