Betsy McCue Gibson, award-winning international intimate boudoir editorial photographer in Kalamazoo Michigan, photographed in black-and-white wearing fur coat.

53 Trips Around the Sun: A Major Moment of Reclamation

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!! It’s been a helluva year. Can I get an amen?

The kind of year that cracks you open in quiet, unexpected ways. Burnout. Healing. Shedding old identities. Learning how to rest without guilt. Finally admitting that the way you’ve been living might not be the way you want to keep going. The kind of year that doesn’t just change your circumstances — it changes you.

Standing here now, I recognize the moment.

I’ve been the phoenix rising before. I know this feeling.

The kind that comes after you’ve walked through hell, sifted through the ashes, and realized you’re standing right on the edge of your next becoming. Queen of Wands energy. Scarred. Radiant. Embodied. No longer burning yourself to keep others warm.

I don’t know if it was burnout. Healing trauma. Realizing I’d outgrown a previous version of myself. Perimenopause. Learning the dance between masculine and feminine energy. Or finally admitting that the hustle life I was living was quietly killing my soul and dimming my fire.

Probably all of it.

But the difference between where I was in January of this year and where I am right now?

Girrrrlllll. Let me tell you.

IT’S WORTH CELEBRATING!!!

I’ve been rising and evolving into Betsy version 3.0… maybe 3.7 at the moment… while simultaneously healing. Learning how to regulate my nervous system. Rewiring my brain to allow more joy, more ease, more pleasure. Letting myself live in a happier, freer, more unapologetic, and deeply authentic way without constantly feeling the need to push or perform.

I get to write the rules now.
I get to choose.
I get to decide how I wake up each day and how I live this life.

And that is what this birthday is about.

Reclaiming my Fire

I’m in an era of reclamation, bold choices, and softer mornings. Living in a space of braver truths and deeper rest. And the biggest commitment ever in my existence to give myself FULL PERMISSION to be my silly self, to slow down, to desire more, and to be more and more myself without apology.

Is this your 50s?
I don’t know.

All I know is that I am FULL TILT COMMITTED TO MORE JOIE DE VIVRE!!

MORE ALIVENESS.

MORE MOMENTS THAT MAKE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD AND FEEL TURNED ON BY MY OWN DAMN LIFE!!!

I know I’m worth celebrating.
I know I deserve everything I want and desire.
And I’m done settling—because why should I?

Celebrate Yourself at Any Age

This is how I’m celebrating my 53rd trip around the sun. No, it’s not a major milestone—but it is a MAJOR moment.
It’s a conscious pause to honor who I’ve become and celebrate who I’m still becoming.

Because birthdays don’t have to be loud to be meaningful. They don’t need permission. And they don’t need to be attached to a specific number to matter.

Choosing yourself now is THE major milestone.

Bubbles & Boudoir: A Birthday Muse Experience

So that’s why I decided to pop the bubbly and raise a glass with Bubbles & Boudoir: Birthday Muse celebration. I created this with intention to give more women the permission slip to celebrate themselves with a champagne-soaked boudoir experience rooted in self-expression, embodiment, and being fully seen and celebrated as the main character in your life! 

12 Months
12 Birthday Muses
1 Muse per Month

Each Muse will reclaim her birthday as a ritual of self-celebration instead of an afterthought.

This experience is designed for those ready to mark a moment in their lives not by shrinking, but by honoring who they’ve become and who they’re still becoming. It’s a celebration of confidence, presence, and permission in a space that is intentional and deeply affirming.

If you’re done letting your birthday pass you by, this is your invitation.

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