Every year since starting my blog, I've done some type of birthday post when the seventeenth of November rolls around. One year I wrote about 19 things I learned by 19, and last year I entitled my post 22 things that matter, to name a couple of the better ones.
This year I've struggled with what I should write about for my birthday. I've been too preoccupied trying to balance classes, work, writing discussion board posts, being an RA, doing final projects, memorizing verses, reading for my young adults group, and trying to survive life in a house with eleven other people to come up with something even half as intriguing as what I wrote when I turned 20 or 22 (yeah, don't be fooled - my post about "19 things" was for my 20th birthday, not my 19th). I mean, clearly writing has been hard for me at the best of times recently, considering the last time I posted anything was back in September!
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| Rattlesnake Point, Milton ON - October 2019 |
This year's birthday post is going to be a little different anyway because quite a bit of my life has been different recently. In a good way, mostly. Y'all I have been learning so much that I probably could have titled this post something like "23 Things I've Learned Since Moving Into A House With Eleven Other People" but that's an excessively long title and coming up with twenty-three things would hurt my brain too much. And considering I'm currently on a week-long break, I don't feel like hurting my brain.
The last few weeks have been full of lessons for me. I've started learning that I need to not let myself take on things that aren't my responsibility because I burn out so quickly when I do that. I've been learning how to communicate effectively and work well as a team member #RAlife. And most prominently, I've been realizing that I can be relatively aggressive and in-your-face about things when I'm trying to delegate but secretly still have the desire to do everything myself - apparently I like to live by the motto "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself" ...that ain't going well for me. 🙃
I'm learning that I can't do everything myself. It's impractical, and it's impossible. It's not impossible only because I live in a house with so many other people, but also because it's too easy to find myself frustrated with others for not helping even though I'm the one who wants to do things myself (logic, right???), and also I end up getting burnt out and exhausted and irritable.
Like, so irritable that Irritability has been my middle name over the past few weeks, just ask the people who live with me... sorry y'all. I'm not proud of it. And I hardly wanted to write about it, but I've learned so much from it that I had no choice but to write about it.
I've learned that a lot of my frustrations with other people stem from frustrations that I'm feeling toward myself, or from unmet expectations that I've placed on myself. That came as a huge breakthrough for me when I had to try to explain why I was frustrated with someone and then I embarrassingly realized that it wasn't even them with whom I was frustrated - it was myself!!
As my birthday drew closer and closer, I didn't really feel like being celebrated. Usually my birthday is one of my favourite days, but I just felt so icky about having been in a constant cycle of: being aggressive -> not liking it -> vowing to change -> *someone does/doesn't do something* -> reacting in an "in-your-face" way -> being called out for it -> feeling embarrassed -> vowing to change -> *someone does/doesn't do something* -> repeat cycle from the top.
Yuck. Not a cute look for me... Or anyone really. But we're talkin about me here, I know. Don't remind me. 😅
The other day, one of the girls I live with told me she wanted to buy me something for my birthday from her work. And then another one of the girls started asking me about what I like because she wanted to buy me something too. And I was hit with a humbling and nearly emotional moment of realization that even when I'm dealing with being exhausted and aggressive and burnt out and irritable, I can still be loved on and celebrated.
Honestly, I wasn't feeling like being celebrated because I was embarrassed about how I'd been acting, and I didn't think my recent actions warranted any type of celebration. But we're all human. And there's grace (and hopefully forgiveness) for me. Plus I've realized that this is another one of those "me feeling a certain way because of frustrations that I'm feeling toward myself or unmet expectations that I've placed on myself" situations that I mentioned before.
The girls in the house still wanted to celebrate my birthday. My family still wants to celebrate my birthday. My housemates did prematurely celebrate my birthday the other night with some 11pm brownies and a solo whispered serenade of happy birthday from one of them because quiet hours start at 10pm so y'know, we gotta be quiet. A couple of my closest friends are meeting up for dinner with me this week because they want to celebrate my birthday.
Because even when my name is Elizabeth Irritability Reda, I'm still me. And people still love me - surprisingly enough. 🤪 And I'm still worthy of being celebrated, even amidst my mistakes.
🥳
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