My Birthday is Looming

And the Barbie Selfie Generator Trend

Sometimes, you just have to jump on board with a trend. This one got me. Was it because of Rubirosa and their usage of Marisa Tomei’s character in My Cousin Vinny? Aka my spirit animal? Maybe. But it was also because I’ve been seeing it pop up everywhere. Here’s a collection of some funny ones I found while researching.

rubirosa_nyc

A post shared by Rubirosa Pizza & Ristorante (@rubirosa_nyc)

The Barbie movie, directed by Greta Gerwig, is coming to theaters July 21st and I’m kind of excited about it. Not to mention Margot Robbie was probably born to play Barbie, and Ryan Gosling makes a great Ken. They kinda had me with those two. The entire cast is pretty great honestly - I’ll see basically anything with Will Ferrell. This post is not sponsored btw, just thought I’d share.

Anyway, if you’d like to make your own, click here! The website is barbieselfie.ai in case that link doesn’t work. Upload a pic of yourself, reposition if needed, edit the text, and boom. You are now a meme! Here’s a post from Stylecaster that explains it in a bit more detail if you need.

I obviously couldn’t decide on just one so I made a carousel of a bunch of them. You’d think I’d have much better shit to do with my time but here we are.

Now, onto more important things like my birthday anxiety. It’s tomorrow, so 4/11, to be exact. I’ll be honest, I’m not really one to go ham on my birthday, but this is the last year of my 30’s and that feels some kinda way. Bittersweet? Crazy? Grateful? Idk. I sometimes feel like I’m 25 and then my knees remind me that I’m not, ya know?

SPEAKING OF. Quick story.

I took a dance class last week and it was a high heels dance class. Let me explain something to you: dancing in heels is no fucking joke. To the women out there who do this regularly…bless you. I have a significant leg injury that prevents me from wearing heels for an extended period of time, let alone dance in them. That said, this has been a bucket list thing for me and I’m not only determined, but ridiculously stubborn, too.

Just so you know, here’s what happens to my leg when I wear heels for too long or dance in them: I get a Charley Horse (which is one of the weirdest, most annoying pains ever) in my ankle and calf area, right around where my skin graft is. The pain then usually travels down to my foot - the arch and the toes - where I have nerve damage. It’s incredibly painful. I usually have to sit for a bit and stretch, and it’s hard to shake...literally. It’s a pretty aggressive reminder of what I went through with this leg, and it makes me feel very “incapable.” Not a thing I enjoy feeling.

On top of this, some of the movements literally made me nauseous. I almost laughed while typing that because WTF. This has nothing to do with my leg accident, obviously, but doing a bunch of neck rolls and hair flips literally made me nauseous and wobbly. I felt seasick. And I was nowhere near the sea. That…has to be an age thing…right? Or am I just unwell on all fronts? I used to be able to do 3-4 pirouettes without feeling a thing, but a hair toss makes me dizzy? Wild.

Long story short, I will be trying this class one more time with better shoes (aka a lower heel) and kneepads. Who knows, maybe I’ll even pop some dramamine beforehand. Get fucking crazy. I REFUSE TO GIVE UP.

Moral of the story: if you want something bad enough, you’ll keep trying. When I was recovering from the car accident, I was not letting anything stop me from getting back into dancing. I was also 17 #lol. Now, I can try again but ultimately I have to listen to my body. If it’s causing me more pain and I’m putting myself at risk for further injuries, I’ll stop.

While I was definitely upset that I couldn’t dance the way I wanted to, I always have to remind myself that I’m in a very different position than most people at my age. Some parts of my body are not what they should be, and I should be grateful that I can do any of these things even a little bit to begin with.

So for my birthday this year, I’ll choose to be grateful. Grateful for the ability to dance, grateful for my good skin that keeps me looking pretty damn good for almost 40, and grateful for the fact that the 90’s are back and chunky heels/platform/comfy ass shoes are in again.

HBD TO ME. Til next time :)