Reclaiming my life

It's my birthday in a couple of weeks time and since it's on a Friday and since I'd been told to take lots of holiday from work this year, I decided to book the day off. But that lead to the question, what do I want to do with that day?

I thought long and hard. The OH fancied doing a long weekend at a country pub but I declined. Dirty weekends are great, don't get me wrong, but somehow it didn't feel right for me here and now. This is a strange birthday to be celebrating. It's not that I've reached a landmark age or anything but it so nearly didn't happen. And that thought lead me to the answer. I wanted to surround myself with the most important people to me and thank them for being there when I needed them.

So I am going to spend the day cooking what I hope is an amazing dinner and then having a wonderful time eating, drinking and chatting with my friends. It's a shame I couldn't invite more people than I have, I could easily have invited two or three times the number, but we live in a mid-terrace house and so numbers are limited to enable us to feel comfortable. I shall invite the others another time.

And this is how I am reclaiming my life back. After two decades of isolation and concentrating on supporting my family, I am re-emerging into the warm glow of friendships. Finding time to get to know, care for and support other people, as well as imposing on them when I need comfort. This two way street is something that had disappeared from my life and with it I had become a very one dimensional person.

But now I feel as though I have woken up from a long dream. Life has expanded out in front of me with so many options and opportunities. I have formed friends that I hope I shall never lose, learned things for myself that I would have thought beyond me and started to live my dreams instead of thinking they were outside my reach. Life is so much richer now than last year, it's hard to believe I am the same person. In many ways I think I am no longer the same person. And if, occasionally, I forget this and revert back to my old ways – please, kick my butt!