Shit. My birthday is less than a week away.

My mom sent me an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday last night. I'm trying to figure out what to buy. I've wanted a new cookware set for ages, need new knives, want bath supplies....looking at these items with Julie & Julia on the set has made me cry. Since I turned 33 the year I had decided I would "have it all," or get it for myself if I didn't, has come and gone 12 times. It's not that I'm feeling sorry for myself, it's more an honest assessment that I have made nothing of my life, and yet seem content to let it continue.

All of the lofty dreams and ideas I have; ambitions, however small, the life in my imagination - I seem to sabotage it at every turn. I seem more content to suffer and wilt in silence than to pick myself up by my bootstraps and make something of myself. It's a horrible realization, knowing that everything I do not have is of my own making and my fear of success - I wouldn't know how to be really happy - keeps me from making a move.

I don't know what it is that has kept me from moving forward, but I've spent 20 years in a holding pattern; my life has continued but I've not grown with it. More horrifically, I only tend to realize this once per year, just a week before another has officially gone by.

Will this year be any different? Dare I try to make something of it before it's too late?