FtB: the birthday, version B
[originally posted at feelings: the blog on june 28th, 2010.]
i’m glad i slept on this blog entry.
when i first contemplated writing it last thursday night, i was feeling extremely sad. it was the end of my birthday, and i was feeling very much like i didn’t really matter to most people.
that, on the ONE DAY a year when it might be nice to have folks celebrate that i exist, i hadn’t merited more than a casual nod. and, in many cases, not even that. i felt forgotten and ignored. after six months of struggling to crawl out of exactly that kind of “i’m a failure” emotional hole and finally being able to see over its rim, it felt like my worst thoughts about myself were, in fact, true.
the only person who wanted to spend time with me on my birthday (or to celebrate it at all), and who was genuinely excited about it, was my mom. god bless her! to be fair, trixie was working on thursday and she’d already earmarked sunday as my official birthday-celebration day, so that was fine and gave me something to look forward to on the weekend. and i know in my heart that i have a number of faraway friends who probably would have gleefully taken me out for cake or ice cream or celebrations of some sort had they been anywhere near toronto.
but no one here offered. at all. so, as clichéd as it sounds, i wound up going to bed in tears on thursday night after an evening alone.
this was a birthday when i really needed to feel like i did matter. quite a few people knew that the first half of the year had been kind of tough, so i sort of hoped for... something. i dunno. i don’t mean i expected a parade or lavish presents or a party or any kind of fanfare. not at all. but how much time or effort does it really take to send an email or pick up the phone or write a card to say, “happy birthday! have a great day!”?
all this to say: the blog entry i would have written a few days ago would have been decidedly bleak. definitely more raw and depressing than the one i’m writing today, but i've learned sometimes it’s better to let feelings distill a bit before writing them down. revisiting them with a bit of distance can weaken their potency and add a little clarity.
anyway...
when i woke up friday morning, the heaviness in my chest was still there, and i could feel tears swelling in the pockets of my eyes, ready to tumble out at the slightest provocation. i hadn’t slept much the night before, and my head was stuck in a dark cloud. the emotional side of my brain was screaming from the rooftops; the intellectual side just shrugged.
in short: it was not how i wanted to begin to the next year of my life.
thankfully, instead of crawling back into bed and back into that hole, or pouring out feelings here, i had a fantastic, three-hour phone conversation with one of my closest friends. we talked about all this at great length and in great detail and, in just thinking out loud with someone else, i managed to gain some perspective and come to some very telling conclusions. about myself, about other people, about some of my friendships and about what i really want and need. i spent the rest of friday thinking and reviewing and revamping. i realized that a lot of what happened wasn’t surprising at all in hindsight, and that the perceived apathy directed my way (whether intentional or circumstantial, or imagined and self-destructively internalized by me) actually afforded me some valuable insight.
by the time i finished that epic phone call, i felt much better, and almost liberated in some weird way. i had permission to feel bad and had been given validation of my disappointment, but was also encouraged and motivated to look more closely at the way i operate. more specifically: what needs to change to reduce the likelihood that i'll fall into the same hole next june. or next week. or ten minutes from now.
later, i chatted online with another friend, who said the whole experience was probably the “best worst birthday present” -- that it might have crapped on my day, but that it was a gift in its own strange way in the end. i think she’s right.
in the comments section for my june 23rd entry below, lou mentions that she believes what we get, despite how awful or difficult it might be, is what we want... even if we don’t know it. i think she’s right, too.
so i spent the entire weekend hanging out with my mom and sister, doing stuff we find fun.
because it’s what i wanted to do.
and because it made me feel happy and loved.
