A New Approach to Birthdays

It's been almost a month since my meds adjustment and things have been functioning much better than before.  I can't say I have a burning desire to live but at least I don't have a burning desire to die.

I recently celebrated my birthday in a much quieter way than in the past.  Part of it was out of respect for my mother, but part of it was because I realized that a birthday is like a personal New Year's.  It's a great time to contemplate, reflect, and create a plan for the coming year.  My approach wasn't to create resolutions so much as to identify all the things that I have coming down the pike in the next 12 months, lay out all the factors, then decide what I could realistically handle.  I'm sure that therapists would applaud and cite it as a common mental health exercise; I really don't care one way or another so long as it gets me through the year without a crisis.
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On a different note, I have to say that what I really hate about my mood stabilizers is that I can't get the least bit hypomanic.  I seem to kick into the worst part of mania, where you have no idea what you're saying, your brain is going a million miles per hour, and there's a slight sense of desperation.  It would be nice to have a slight period of hypomania, just so that I could have a little fun once in a while.  Lately, if I'm calm, I just want to sleep.  There's just nothing to get excited about.