Reflecting on 42: Birthdays, Growth, and Relationships

Simple Celebration
I turned 42 years old this year. It was special because I turned off my birthday in Facebook, meaning people will no longer get notified that it’s my birthday! 🙂 There weren’t a hundred messages from FB friends and family. Instead, I got greetings from my siblings, parents, close aunts/uncles/cousins. Also, 2 days before my birthday, I told my daughter that my birthday is coming up because like me, she doesn’t have a good memory. LOL. Anyways, on that morning, both my husband and my daughter were at the breakfast table. It was the usual school day morning. I didn’t want to make a fuss about my birthday and see if they would remember. Out of the blue, my daughter said, “Happy Birthday, Mom!”. It made my day. Of course my husband doesn’t have a clue what day it was.. he says all his days look the same. He also greeted me happy birthday, thanks to my daughter…haha. But he surprised me with 3 beautiful plants when he came back from work, so he redeemed himself. 🙂

Finances
I did not achieve the financial goals I’ve set for myself this year. This is mainly because of the food truck and a series of unfortunate events, aka bad decisions. I always remind myself that they were all good lessons learned early in my life that will help me as I get older and more vulnerable to financial setbacks. It’s good that I learned what not to do because it would be harder to recover when I’m older. I have tried to use my legal insurance to send a demand letter to the buyer of the truck who has only paid us half of the selling price. The lawyer said it is covered in the legal insurance from MetLife but settling it in small court will be extra payments. I don’t want to take it to small courts yet because I also understand the struggles of starting a business especially in the current economic climate.

Career & Motherhood – Admittedly, I have allowed myself to stagnate and I’m going to be more intentional this year on growing my career. Ever since I had my daughter, there were more responsibilities to juggle. Time management is harder and there are times when it is very hard to focus. I always carry ‘mom guilt‘, thinking that I should be doing more as a mom – feeding her nutritious food, helping her get more advanced academically, and more.. But now that she’s much more mature and wanting to spend more time with her friend online playing Roblox, I don’t beat myself up too much anymore. I do try to plan times for us to be off our screens and have more interaction with each other. As for my career, I am taking deliberate steps to grow more after my 1:1 with my boss a day before my birthday. More of that on this post.

Relationships – My husband and I understand each other more. I am more than happy that he finally found a job where he feels valued, appreciated, and respected. He’s now the boss and he has more authority to make decisions and help the business grow. This has helped him emotionally, mentally, and physically. I like to think I have been supportive and helped him be where he is now 🙂 My parents are doing well as well, and I am able to connect with them more because they have Wifi installed at their farmhouse this month! Woohoo! I also chat with my brothers, sister, and close relatives on a pretty regular basis. I have disabled my Facebook but we still connect through Messenger. I also have a very few trusted friends I regularly keep in touch with so I think overall, relationships are an 8/10.

42 was about starting to bounce back from a financial setback and figuring out my intentions in this decade. I would need to sow more seeds that I will start reaping when I retire. I am learning more about keeping a smaller number of people close in my life but making sure that they are the ones I want to keep for the rest of my life.