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lipstickandblackcoffee

~ To A Life Worth Living xo

lipstickandblackcoffee

Tag Archives: Birthday

I Made It

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Posted by Irene Ephraim in Life

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Aging gracefully, Birthday, Christmas, depression, End of year, Happy birthday, life, Manifestation, New Age, new year, Pandemic

33 held so much for me. I felt like I couldn’t fully exhale for a few reasons.
Give or take the inaccuracies of reported history, Jesus was 33 when he ascended. My late friend was also 33 when he ascended. And a small part of me had come to anticipate that this too could be my fate.

The title ‘Fight For My Life’ was up for grabs and I had to fiercely defend it. Silently I won many rounds, but I was also unequivocally defeated in too many to count. For a few, all I could do was hold on.

With some bruising, I feel triumphant, not for any other accomplishment than simply being here to mark entering a new age.

I wasn’t going to celebrate it in any fashion because the pandemic-transitioning fatigue is catching, quite literally. But I had a thought; things could be vastly different next year and you’d hate to look back wistfully, wishing you had done something, anything, to celebrate something that in actuality is quite remarkable. 

You probably feel like you were in the trenches too. After all look at the saga, still. Celebrate yourself too.

Here’s to “What’s in store for 34?!’ 
Happy Birthday to Me!
Xo

Download 33 Powerful Affirmations and Confirmations for FREE here

33 Powerful Affirmations and ConfirmationsDownload

Accelerate Your Life–A Guide and Workbook to Making Richer Choices was created to support you in moving full steam ahead. Now that the fog has started to clear, it’s time to take things back into your own hands.

Purchase Accelerate Your Life Here
£4.99

Accelerate Your Life–A Guide and Workbook to Making Richer Choices was created to support you in moving full steam ahead. Now that the fog has started to clear, it’s time to take things back into your own hands.

Accelerate Your Life Guide & WorkbookDownload
Lessons Learnt

CAN YOU HEAR YOURSELF?

The constant chatter is overwhelming. One person says this, another person says that. Your mum says it’s this way, your brother says it’s the other. Then there’s the people who love to be contrarian with no actual thoughts of their own, just adept at piggybacking off what a group of people might agree upon and finding a …

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December 13, 2021
Lessons Learnt

Cloudy With A Chance Of…

One day you’re fine, life is good and the air is filled with prospects that you could almost pluck them like the squiggly lines you see when you look at a blue sky. The following day however, you’re freezing your bits off, your umbrella is inside out and the contents of your bag have just …

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December 6, 2021
Life

The Improbable Is Still Possible 

Improbable–not likely to be true or to happen.I saw a TikTok of a guy doing the improbable. Getting two basketballs into a hoop using a crutch, throwing a CD into a moving Wii console, releasing ping pong balls with the aim of reaching various points and so on.   It was fascinating to watch. In a different …

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December 2, 2021December 2, 2021

Being 30

29 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Lessons Learnt, Life, Motivation

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Age, Birthday, Desire, Friday, Goals, Journey, London, Motivation, Number, Quit, Society, Target, Thirty, Time

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At 22 I made a video with my then boyfriend (not that kind of video, ya nasty) about what I wanted to accomplish by 30. Unfortunately I do not have the video to refer back to as he deleted it when we broke up- salty.

Anyway, I remember having such grand plans of what I wanted my life to look like and the accomplishments I should have by the time I turned 30.

L-O-L

My life is nothing like I had envisioned. It’s great just different.

For years leading up to it, I was incredibly conscious of that target to the point of sometimes crippling anxiety. I’d think about turning 30, and palpitations would follow with a sense of foreboding ‘I am not going to do everything am I?, I’m failure if  I don’t make my goals, all my peers are getting along nicely, there must be something wrong with me…’ and the constant head chatter would regurgitate itself every so often.

Then there were the advice from those in their 30’s, talking about how amazing it will be and how much you’d enjoy it. Their opinions were met with my dubious side eye, raised left eyebrow and pursed lips “sure”.

But here I am 6 months into being 30 not having achieved all of my previous goals and thinking what was the big deal? Life hasn’t come to a halt because things didn’t go according to my plan and it also did not require me to stop working towards them just because I’m 30, in fact quite the opposite.

I have opted to continuously recommit myself to, well, me, in every aspect and there’s no age limit on that-it’s entirely up to you.

Don’t limit yourself. If things don’t work out as planned, oh well, it’s not the end of the world. Keep going, take a step back if you need to, but simply don’t quit.

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Xo

This is 30!

21 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Experiences, Life

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Birthday, Celebration, Christmas, December, Dinner, Family, Friendship, growth, Lessons, new year, Party, Progress, Thirty

I wish I could give you a play by play of everything that has been happening over the past few weeks but we’d be here forever. A few words to describe it would be a rollercoaster of emotions, testing and exciting.

At times it felt like a line from Mary Mary’s Shackles ‘everything that could go wrong, all went wrong at one time’. I couldn’t catch a break. For every disappointment, I steamrolled my way forward, refusing to stop, just dusting myself off and keeping it pushing. Of course there is only so long you can continue on that path until it all falls down, and that came the day before my birthday, a few hours before my dinner party. My emotions boiled over and momentarily a dam broke. Fortunately, I didn’t have the capacity to wallow in it because I had a dinner to be at, and not just any dinner at that, MY 30th birthday dinner.

The dinner was amazing! I am so fortunate to have had great people to help organise, plan and oversee the proceedings of the day as I could not have done it without them. It’s a huge blessing to also have friends and family that would show up and I’m incredibly grateful.

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What do I think so far about being 30? It’s been 3.5 days and its too soon to have a fully formed answer to this, but so far, it feels like a coming into something new. I have renewed energy to appreciate the things that I have and to make even better what I have been given. Ironically,  I also feel like the baby of the next decade (lol) which is great and I don’t feel so “old”.

I’m excited about what’s next and looking forward to the year ahead. I want to be able to say this time next year “What a difference a year makes” in the most wonderful way.

What do you want to say this time next year?

Xo

 

 

 

Why Didn’t You Warn Me?!

Why Didn't You Warn Me?!

Why Didn't You Warn Me?! is a podcast speaking on the things you should know, but don't. The things you typically find out after the fact, and it's sometimes too late. Fear not, Why Didn't You Warn Me?! with Irene aka Lipstick, will give you the 411 through story-telling, conversations, and refreshing perspectives.

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