Inside Gigi's World

August 29th, 1980-something.

My mother was still pregnant for me. She was 4 days past her due date.

The end of this miserable pregnancy was never going to end.

It was like a slow  torturous, real life hell.

All wrapped up with 9 months of morning sickness,  preclampsia, one of the hottest heat waves that summer and a big, fat, hot pink bow.

I guess I was pretty set in my ways right from the jump.

And still not has changed. I still like to do the complete opposite of what is expected of me.

I use the word “No” almost as often as I use the word “Fuck”.

I still don’t sleep a lot…..

I’m pretty sure my mother thought she was going to be pregnant for me the rest of her remaining days, so much so, that she sent my father to pick up his paycheck all the way in Connecticut.

There were no cell phones, no pagers then. There was just waiting. She had no way to tell him that she was in labor and that I was making my grand entrance into this world.

Fast forward all these years later and here I am, on the eve of the anniversary that I took my epic trip down the birth canal and I can’t help but reflect on the events of the last year of my life.

I can’t lie. My expectations for this year were pretty low. I wasn’t sure if the world would close again. I didn’t know if zombies were going to rise from the firey pits of Hell and top the year before. Then I realized, I grew up in Ware, MA and that was the closest thing to Hell that I’d ever experience in my life (fingers crossed).

I knocked off a few items on my ever growing “Bucket List”.

I finally, after all these years, made it to Salem MA. I walked the streets. I shopped in shops and ate fantastic food! I seen some of the Hocus Pocus houses and put my feet in the ocean there.

I cleansed my mind and sat under a waterfall in a place I had never been. Not that sitting under a waterfall was on my bucket list but going to new places was and Chapels Fall was one of those places.

I spent more time with my family.

I enrolled in college.

I tap danced all by myself with a whole audience of people watching.

I laughed.

I cried.

I let go of a lot of shit.

But the biggest gift I gave myself this year, I learned self care is not selfish.

I am hopeful this year will be even better…..