Simply Shilpa

The Shy little girl continues to muse of another birthday, and it’s another year over…

Today, it’s my birthday. I am a happy 49-year-old.

The end of a decade demands a pause and I take a moment to look at the woman in the mirror. The mirror never lies. I see the dark circles, the grey hair, the many extra pounds, the sunspots, the fading eyesight, and I am proud of the woman in the mirror for she embraced them all because every wrinkle, every grey hair, and every pound has a story to tell… stories that I hold close to my heart and moments that make me who I am.

The world today demands growing up and yet makes it so hard to grow old. it takes nerves of steel to stay true to ourselves and grow old without aging our mind. In a world empowered by filters, it takes courage to feel comfortable in our own skin. In a world full of imperfections, it takes audacity to feel perfectly me.

I thought a lot today about what do I want for my birthday… and I realized, I want nothing. It’s that weird feeling of contentedness.. you know when you like a lot of pretty things and yet, you have no urge to add them to your cart or save them for a later spree. This weird feeling made me happy.

I am happy to be at the point where materialism doesn’t excite me, I am happy to be at the point where I can confidently say I am 90% Unfuckwithable, and I am at the point where I KNOW for a fact that Pronoia is 100% true. The combination has allowed me to be the woman I want to be… Simply Shilpa. Nothing more and nothing less.

Every birthday there are musings, lessons learned and more lessons learned. This year, inspired by the Internet, I decided to challenge myself. Somewhere between 16th Nov 2020 and 16th Nov 2021… I will give back to the world in 50 different ways. This is to honor the upcoming half-century 🙂 I don’t know what I am going to do, but I do know I will find 50 ways to give back to the world I live in. 50 ways, that go beyond donating money, 50 ways that will hopefully bring a smile on 50 faces.

I was the shy little girl in the mirror, who always saw the world with a looking glass. Today, I am the woman in the mirror who knows there is no looking glass, and yet I continue to believe I will find one. Maybe this fabulous journey of giving back will lead me to the looking glass.. Pronoia, it’s real. Believe!

Happy Birthday to Me!