When I got married and moved away from my family, I unconsciously assumed my husband would take over as birthday coordinator. This was the beginning of my birthday demise. Is my partner adorable, wonderful, and loving? Yep. Did he get the BP routine? Nope. Did I think he should have read my mind and psychically divined my secret desires-? Yesiree. Did I pout, act hurt, and say I didn't care, for many years? Uh huh.

Slowly, reality hit: Why should he know about this BP stuff — he was raised in an-all boy family that didn’t make a big fuss over birthdays, and he dislikes being the center of attention! I came to realize that I was in charge of my birthday happiness and it was my responsibility to ask for what I wanted.

I was pretending that it really didn’t matter, when the truth was I had given up. I told myself that everything was fine in order to save myself from feeling the pain of shutting- down my heart's desires. It was a clever tactic to avoid facing the truth that I had put my joy on hold and I sure wasn’t committed to myself. As women we can be gold medalists in this sport. Being anything less than ecstatic on our birthday is the first step in an insidious process of putting ourselves at the bottom of our t0-do list. But think about it: