Are You There God? It's Me, Crisis.

I learned two things this weekend:  cookies and ice cream are not a well-balanced meal, and I need more closet space very badly. 

Okay forget it.  I learned a lot of things about myself this weekend and have come to the conclusion that I'm having some sort of breakdown.  (Don't call the authorities just yet...I'll let you know when I need the pills.  hehe) The older I get, the more I notice this pattern emerge as my birthday month draws closer.  I'm an August baby and I wonder if that makes it worse?  August is the close of summer - one of the best and free-est times of the year - and I really am a free spirit in the truest sense, so summer is a time when I feel very much like me. However August also marks the beginning of the school year - a time to get serious and dig in.  Even though I'm no longer enrolled, I endured years of education and it is now instinct as fall grows closer...fun is over (even with all the boots and sweaters and layers and wait a second am I feeling slightly better??)  You all know I've been going off about summer being basically a no-show this year in Southern California.  Today was a warm day, but by late afternoon it was most definitely time to don a jacket or sweater yet again.  When I threw something over my shoulders as we were leaving the beach, I could feel the knot in my stomach grow tighter.

It's almost over - the summer and this year of my life.  And somehow I feel robbed.  Of warm days and nights and a sweltering heat I had actually looked forward to for the first time in years.  Sigh.  Somehow I feel like I'm leaving a piece of me behind.  Sigh again.

I think this latest string of melancholy started when I saw this come in the mail on Friday:

Can you see that?  I'm sure most of you know what it is....

For some reason I thought it was junk mail...too much going on right now, I guess.

Then I flipped it over and saw who it was from.

If you have an Anthropologie card you get a little something 

from them to use for your birthday.  

I must confess the "Especially For" really warmed my heart.

Everyone wants to feel special on their birthday.  Or just in general.

This year the card is extra cute.  It has a little necklace with a candle on it.

I guess I should be grateful that it's not that warm in SoCal 

or my candle could have melted.

Every cloud really does have a silver lining. :)

Anyway, the next thing you knew I was baking cookies at midnight and back in line at Coldstone for the Key To My Heart Key Lime ice cream extravaganza.  Yikes!

Please get ready for my annual existential crisis, dear readers.  It happens without fail every year either around this time or at the holidays - and sometimes both.  Existential crisis:  a stage of development at which an individual questions the very foundations of his or her life: whether their life has any meaning, purpose or value. (Wikipedia).

Prepare to watch it unfold amidst internal conflict and semi-schizophrenic behavior as I go back and forth between "ooooooh must have this" and "i gotta give everything away and keep 5 things because people are starving".  Not to worry - both these sides are alive and well within my being and, in all seriousness, I actually think it's healthy and allows me to keep a proper perspective/balance on living well, being a consumer and giving to others.

So all that being said (and thank you for bearing with me) let the internal mayhem begin....or is that continue?  I've been giving the current Anthro catalog the once over and am about the peruse their website.  Phase one here I come!!

Do any of you experience mixed emotions around your birthday?  How do you handle it?  Please don't say ice cream because I'm to the brim!  har! kinda...

Oh, and how was the weekend?