Who Knows What Could Happen?

I have to admit, I’ve been struggling getting back into the SL swing of things since my vacation. Not that I had this amazing, fantastic time on vacation or anything. *laughs* In fact, for the first couple of days, the weather had me so miserable, I was about to NOPE on outta there and come home. What can I say? I am used to being in constant air conditioning. There were pockets of good, of course. It wasn’t a completely horrible experience and a lot of good came from it on a personal level, but I was extremely glad to get home. Only now that I’m here… I don’t know. I think because I came home to immediately start dealing with the main stress in my SLife, it has thrown me all off.

But, the nice thing about stresses in SL is that they can be fixed. Or changed. Or thrown away. After discussing it with the family, by next month, the main thing that has made me very unhappy in the past few months will be eliminated and I can breathe easier. Because I haven’t in months, and even now I’m still a little frantic about something. And I’m sorry I’m being vague, but until it’s completely in motion, I don’t want to get too in depth about it all. Soon, though, I promise. 🙂

My birthday is next week. Next Friday, actually. I should be more “OH NO, GETTING OLDER” about it, but I’m not. The only thing that bugs me is that I’m slowly slowly getting gray hair. I’ve found 2 of them in the past 2 months! Well, I say gray, but they aren’t really. They’ve been more of a pale gold. So I dunno. Maybe I’m going blonde in my old age. Or as my friend Beuanna said, I’m turning into my avatar. Hey, if I get the body to go along with that, I’m all in! *laughs* But other than the hair thing, I don’t mind the number. Probably because I still feel like I’m 25. Or 17. Or sometimes 12.

Although tonight, all I feel is exhausted, so I guess it’s bedtime.

A Beautiful Birthday

Oh my gosh, I’m exhausted! But it’s a good exhausted. Tonight, my family threw me a birthday party! It was supposed to be a surprise, but they had to let me know about it so that I’d actually be able to be there. *laughs* It was a BEAUTIFUL affair!! Here’s a few pictures!

There are tons more, which you can see in my birthday Flickr set. It was really just awesome to be with my friends and family. My sister did a fantastic job decorating and DJing! It made me so happy to just be with everyone that were nice enough to come. And it was super fun to go out to The Cornfield after the party, still dressed in full fairy queen costume, to kill some zombies and get some corn! 🙂

But this fairy needs to rest her wings now. Goodnight! ♥

And yet another one.

So today was my birthday. I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I know. Me, the girl who loves birthdays to the point of needing to celebrate twice in a month. But when you lose someone close to you, you always think random, little thoughts. “She would have been this old this year. I just turned this age and when she was this age…” Etc, etc.

I turned older than my sister this year. I mean, technically, I reached that milestone last November. But our numbers were the same and I could just NOT think about it. Now I’m older than she ever will be. In some ways, it feels like I reached a goal. I don’t know why, but it does. In other ways, it just makes me sad. She’d probably laugh. Finally the baby sister is old. That gives me a minor amount of comfort. But the whole thing has felt very weird to me and I’ve been extremely off kilter the past week or so. Sad. Angry. I’ve cried a lot. I’ve snapped at people who have done nothing to me. In a big way, it’s a relief that the day is almost over because I can move on from it.

My online friends, though… God, what would I do without them? What would I do without these people that call me family? They have been amazing. I’ve been surprised with all kinds of things, AND they are throwing me a party on Saturday night!! I’m so lucky and blessed to have them.

So I was going to show you guys pictures of the decorations in my house that the family put up. And I was going to show you pictures of our Bumblebee meeting tonight. But I actually got inspired! This is a picture I’ve been wanting to do FOREVER. Almost 3 years, which is like forever in SL! *laughs* But I couldn’t find all the pieces and of course my skills aren’t awesome. But I’m really happy that I was able to finally do it because I love this song and I find myself humming it a lot when I’m in SL.

Smiling out loud
Sailing through clouds
Life is so new
And all I know is that I’m drifting towards you

So don’t get in the way
I want this feeling to stay
Just let me keep falling, falling

So don’t catch me now
I just wanna keep on falling somehow
So don’t stop me now
I just wanna keep this going somehow
Keep on falling

Day 256 – Another Trip Around The Sun

So today is my birthday. 🙂 If it feels like it’s been my birthday for a week, well…it almost has been. My adorable SL family has thrown me a couple of parties and since people are a little iffy on when exactly I celebrate my birthday [you can read an old post of mine about why I have celebrated 2 birthdays in the past if you’d like.], it’s been my birthday pretty much all month.

But, today is actually my biological birthday and I’m pretty happy about it. 🙂

Unlike some people, I don’t really fear getting older. I’ve enjoyed my 30s more than I enjoyed my 20s, and I assume when I finally get there, I’ll enjoy whatever the 40s throw at me as well. I laugh and tell people I’m going back to 30, or 25, or 21, but it’s not because I hate my age. It’s just joking around.

But I do think about age quite a bit. I’ve watched my parents grow older. My mom often tells me “I won’t be here when you’re my age, so pay attention to what I’m telling you now.” It’s all education. It’s all information.

A few years ago, I participated in a study one of the local university professors was conducting on people in virtual worlds. She asked me once, “How old is Alicia?” At the time, I was 33, so I told her that Alicia was 33 as well. My avatar is me and I am her, so it made sense to me.

Being around the family community lately, kid avatars in particular, I’ve been thinking more about age in Second Life. Are our avatars tied to our age? If we can be a cat, or a dragon, or a supermodel, or a child, or a robot here, who is to say that we’re stuck being whatever our biological age is?

I woke up this morning feeling happy and calm. I don’t often feel calm as I’m prone to anxiety, but today I feel calm. I’m going out later to have fun with my bestie and I’m excited about it. I feel young.

So when I logged into SL, I was getting dressed and I thought, “I think I’m 25 in SL today.”

It sounds good. 🙂