Time to celebrate - or is it?

I don't think I would have swapped it.  Swapped my china dog for the shiny trophy.  I was happy with the china dog, he was cute.  And I was pretty happy with second place, I knew I was good at schoolwork.  But I did wonder if my parents would have been happier if I'd been first.  I did wonder if it would have made a difference.  If there might have been a fuss made.  I didn't want a huge fuss, but a little fuss, a little celebrating; that would have been nice.

I can admit that now, but it's still hard.  I think that's when it started.  My elusive search for 'the thing' that would make them happy, make them proud, and make me special.  It's taken me more than twenty-five years to realise that it's never going to happen.  And if I'd been top of the class when I was five years old, there still wouldn't have been a fuss then either!

There's been plenty of worry over small things and minimising of things that actually were a big deal.  That has always been the pattern.  Lots of getting on with it and "Well, you'll just have to...."  The latter one was a favourite; when I was seven years old I thought it was one word - hafto.  I heard it so often, I wanted to use it in my writing vocabulary at school.  There weren't many choices, there were a lot of haftos in my young life.

That's what was important.  Doing the things I had to do, even when I didn't know why I had to do them.  The main reason why I had to do them was because of the authority of the person who was doing the asking and the futility of ever questioning why.

Now that I'm grown, I rebel against that voice in my head that says I have to do things.  As a result, my house is not very clean, my daughter often goes to school with her hair unbrushed and I haven't been to the dentist in a l o n g time.  I have tried to throw off the shackles of the haftos for the things that have more long-term significance.  I don't know if I'm making the best choices this way, but I'm making the best-I-can-do-right-now choices and aiming a little higher in the future hopefully.

Then there are the things in life (like second place prizes) that warrant a little fuss, or maybe even a big fuss....and I don't know how to do it.  I've done my best to put together some sort of birthday acknowledgments for my children and sometimes even for myself.  But I still wonder how do you do this thing called c e l e b r a t e???? Seriously people, I am actually asking!!

It is nearly the three year anniversary of this Princess moving to the new realm.  Dear readers,what should she do to mark the momentous day?