Happy Birthday to me, A self-indulgent post

I am about to be another year older, another year wiser, and another year where I have ABSOLUTELY no idea what I am doing. That is okay. August 19th I will be 36 years old and I am learning about myself. It is a slow tedious process, but well worth it in the end. So in honor of learning about myself, I say Happy Birthday to me!

Check out my other “birthday” posts!
34 Lessons I have learned in life
35 life lessons you should start doing right now

Here is to 36! This past month I have been pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. I have all these things I have always wanted to do growing up or things I have stopped doing as I got older because I was always worried about what other people think of me. It is safe to say that at almost 36… I don’t give a flying &%$* what people think of me.

It is something I have been trying to teach Mikayla so when she grows up she doesn’t have to do all of this work of figuring out who she is or what she wants. She would be doing it the whole time she was growing up. I never want her to grow up having to struggle or wonder about her self-worth.

Looking back

It is crazy to think that I am about to be 36. When I look back I feel like I just graduated high school not too long ago. 2003 does not seem that far away…just a few years maybe… certainly not 18 years. 18 years ago I just graduated and had no plan for my life. I mean I still don’t, but now more than ever I am determined to make something OF myself and FOR myself.

Looking back to who I was then to who I am now… I am blown away by how different I am. If I were to meet my 17-year-old self now… I would have slapped the shit out of her. Not really… but she would have a nice long lecture coming her way about confidence, self-worth, and happiness. All the things I am working on now.

Because if I were to regret anything in my 36 years old life it would be that I waited 18+ years to live life for myself and not anyone else. I regret putting so much time and effort into people who never really cared about me. It sucks all that time was wasted. Well not wasted… it is more like a really long life lesson. I live the first 35 years of my life by someone else’s rules… I am not doing that for the next 35. So happy birthday! Let’s ring in another year with a BANG!

Happy Birthday to me

So in celebration of turning 36, I am doing more things for myself. You are never too old to learn new things or improve upon the things you already know. There is nothing better than being a lifelong learner. Living your life the way you want by being the best and happiest version of yourself. Something that has taken me years to learn to prioritize and will take many more years to constantly put into action.

So I have 10 things I want to learn or improve upon. Some may find their way to being blog posts and others may not. Either way, it is going to be a fun adventure.

These are in no particular order, just things I have always wanted to do or will help me become unapologetically me!

So Happy Birthday to me! I am on my way to becoming someone people won’t recognize.

Dying my hair

The first thing I am doing and I am in the midst of doing is dying my hair a funky color. I have always played it safe growing up. My brother used to dye his hair funky colors and I would do a strip or 2 in my hair, but never did I got full-headed.

I want to do that. So for my birthday, I have already done 2 color removers on my hair to help get rid of the reddish undertone of my hair. For years now I have been dying my hair a mixture of burgundy and a light brown. It has been that for god knows how many years now.

When I was younger I was cutting or dying my hair every other month. I always chose “natural” colors for my hair. My hair is naturally blonde, so I did Burgundy underneath blonde on top, all burgundy (which made my hair look really dark in pictures), so I dyed it black. Then I didn’t like the black I bleached it and it turned orangish… Kept that for a while, went to red and finally, we end up with my reddish-brown color. I have done a lot.

So hopefully (fingers crossed) my hair will be a lovely shade of lavender by my birthday or just a little bit after. Either way, it is happening this month.

Finding my style

I was always into the funky designs, weird fashion and somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that part of me. Over the years I became a muted version of myself. I toned down the colors I once loved so much. My nails would always be done something weird like a neon green with black zebra print. I am sure I have a picture of them somewhere. I was always wearing something funky and slowly as I got older… it wasn’t the age-appropriate stuff to be wearing.

My color palette has become fall ya’ll … Literally, it is fall colors all year round. Which isn’t bad, I do like the colors, but I want to spruce it up a little bit.

My everyday style has fallen into the athleisure wear all day every day or I stay in my PJs. I don’t want to do that anymore. It is time to have another self-care week using clothes. I want to get excited to get dressed and I want to document my journey. This is why the next things I want to do is…

Uping my IG feed

If you look at my Instagram it is a mish-mosh of just random things. Which is fine that is how it is inside my head, but I never actually “feel pretty”. I always think I look frumpy or angry and most of the time I am not. It is just my face. I have never been truly happy with a photo taken of me.

It’s either too boring, I am too ugly, too fat. I think all these things about myself and it needs to stop.

Learning to do my make up

I have worn the same makeup look since I learned how to do makeup. Light foundation, brown eyeshadow smokey, black eyeliner, and pinkish lipstick. Takes me 5 minutes to do. I stopped wearing makeup for the last 5ish years because every time I put it on it looks cakey and dry.

It gets really embarrassing when I spend the time and effort doing my makeup just to walk outside and look like I have dry flaky skin. I usually end up taking it off while in the car. As I have gotten older my cheeks have gotten a little more “rosy” as well as under my chin which I think is from my PCOS. I get a little self-conscious about that now as well.

I just want to put on makeup and feel pretty… not pretty ugly.

Learning how to style my hair

You can see from the above slideshow my go-to hairstyle is a messy bun. 90% of the time my hair looks like this. Even as I am writing this my hair looks like this. I used to do my hair all the time back in the day. I was always curling it, half up/ half down. Crimping, heatless curls, straightening. I was always doing something with my hair.

I don’t know when I stopped doing it, but I need to start again. Especially when I have my lavender hair. I don’t want to wear it up in a bun all the time. My new beautiful colored hair being hidden by my comfortable messy bun. I would do to have my hair done when I celebrate my birthday. Happy Birthday to me!

Experiment in the kitchen

Another thing I used to do was cook and bake all the time and for the past few years, I have lost my motivation. We eat the same thing every week and we are just over having the dreaded “what do you want for dinner?” conversation. It is literally the definition of insanity.

We keep doing the same things expecting a different outcome. Nothing sounds good. We ever crave anything. Like “ooo, pizza sounds good” or “oh man I have been craving fettuccine alfredo”. Not a damn thing comes to mind when we say we are hungry.

I want to experiment with some vegetarian dishes or Mediterranean. Something we have never tried before.

Appreciating my body

If you scroll through my Instagram feed or you are friends with me on Facebook you could see from my pictures that I normally only take photos or crop photos from the waist up. I get self-conscious of my weight even though if you met me in person you would see that I am not ashamed to be a bigger gal. It is only when it comes to the internet.

The internet can be a really harsh place. A lot of people do not accept plus-size people. Some people don’t like it when a plus-size person is confident in their body. I have a fat phobia because of those people. On the internet, I will never 100% be myself and appreciate myself because of people like that.

I feel shamed or gross if my shirt rises and shows my belly. I am self-conscious in shorts because my thighs touch. Now I do post-workout videos of my full body. Why is that? In my head, I think that because I am only showing my body working out is the ONLY ACCEPTABLE TIME for me to show my full body.

My way of thinking is like they won’t say anything about my weight if I am showing that I am working out. Which is so fucking stupid. I am letting people who don’t know me control what I do with my body. I am putting WAAAAAAAAYYYYYY too much thought into someone who does not know me or my medical history. So Happy Birthday Michele you need to start loving yourself.

Filling myself up

From this post, I am sure you can tell I lack self-love or confidence in my appearance. That is something I want to change. If I work on the things that are making me insecure then I would build the confidence to love and appreciate myself for who I am.

I want to remove those barriers of being too fat, too ugly, too whatever, and just be. Just enjoy the time I have on this earth. I have spent way too long blending myself into the crowd when what I really want is to stand out. I want to be unapologetically me…. fat and all. LOL

Happy Birthday!

If you are struggling with getting out of your comfort zone and doing the things you really want to do then I encourage you to follow me over on my Instagram. I will be posting all my updates there if they do not turn into blog posts or videos.

Who else is having a happy birthday in August? Where are my fellow Leo’s at?

I appreciate you reading this little self-indulgent post about me and my insecurities. Wow, Michele, you made it to 36! Happy Birthday to me!

Until next time, have a great day! Remember you are a badass!