Birthdays

Today’s Four days ago my birthday. There. I said it. I can’t remember if I capitalize “I” or not on this blog. I never *still haven’t gotten around to making a style guide.
*Positivity. Manifesting, etc.

I don’t typically like my birthday. It’s fine, but just not my favorite day or anything. I guess I don’t like all the attention. Well, mostly. I like attention in general, obviously, but I want to earn it.

My therapist recently told me I needed to practice “the skill of receiving.” To be clear, my hands are still as good as they’ve always been. But apparently I struggle to accept compliments, or even kindness in general, from other people.

Just now (again, four days ago), my friend Sam offered to pull a footstool over to me while am I sitting here typing, and my first instinct was to say no. Impossible. I simply cannot allow my friend to do this for me. I’ve done nothing to deserve such a kind act.

They were sweeping the floors, and I was just sitting in a chair, looking at my laptop. I’m a guest in their home. Occupying space and using up oxygen without paying so much as a dime of rent. It just felt wrong to allow them to do another kind thing for me.

Naturally, Sam ignored my hesitation, reminded me that today was my birthday and I should let someone show me some kindness. They then spent 2 seconds of their life to move the stool in front of me, and resumed sweeping.

There it is again. All this kindness because it’s my birthday, an anniversary of a day when I did pretty much nothing, while my mom and the C-Section surgery team made sure I would “arrive alive” to… well, outside of the womb, I guess.

Sometimes, on my birthday, I feel like Vito Corleone. People come to me with their happy birthday‘s on this, the day of my birth. Implying that someday, and that day may never come (it definitely will come–every year–in fact), they will call upon me to say happy birthday to them. And then the cycle continues.

Somewhere along the way between all these May 6th’s, I’ve picked up a habit of viewing life as transactional. I don’t want any of my friends or loved ones to think I am taking so much from them without giving enough back. So recently, I’ve been trying to force myself to remember that not every person who does a nice thing is motivated by an IOU. They do nice things because they don’t want to find a horse head in their bed.

I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to convince myself that I can do it alone, without anyone else’s help. It feels less scary that way. Trusting and relying on other people is hard, because I’ve been hurt by them in the past. And yet, I just keep finding myself in need of help. The human experience simply refuses to release its crushing grip on me.

If you’re reading this, you probably know who I am. I assume we’ve spent a good amount of time together, or at least shared enough nice interactions to develop a familiar vibe.

Or maybe you’re a stranger! In which case: Wow! Thanks for reading! But also, why are you reading this? Don’t stop now–you can just tell me when you finish.

I want to give fair warning that this next part is more for the people who do know me, but you can totes play along. In fact I’d love to be parasocial friends!

Now, I have a confession for you, my friend/acquaintance. This confession applies to you regardless of how we met–maybe we were introduced by a mutual friend, maybe we sat next to each other in a class, maybe we got paired together during an icebreaker activity. Maybe we shared an elevator ride even though one of us was secretly hoping that the other wouldn’t make it in before the doors closed.

The circumstances and details that led to that moment when we met don’t really matter. Because what really led to that moment, was the moment before it, and those moments were all the same. You and I were there, together, and neither of us were saying anything.

In that moment of silence, I was afraid. Terrified, really. That’s my confession.

Why? Because in that silence, I felt alone. I needed to reach out and make a friend, or an acquaintance, or just to experience any kind of connection with another person–even a few seconds of small talk.

My mind was racing through all the ways I could break the silence and somehow ruin both of our days. I’d make a joke, and it would offend you. My voice could crack, my pants would fall down, or I’d projectile vomit all over you.

Or, worst of all, maybe none of those nightmares would happen. Instead, I’d just say: “Hi, I’m Josh, nice to meet you,” in a completely normal way, but you wouldn’t reply. You wouldn’t introduce yourself, and you certainly wouldn’t agree with my gross assumption of it being “nice to meet” each other. I was afraid that you would see something in me–or maybe you’d already seen it–that would make you prefer the silence over talking to me.

I don’t know what you were feeling in that moment. Maybe you felt the same way–maybe you were also nervous or scared. But, in that moment, one of us realized something. The terrifying moment wasn’t going to end on its own. The only way to move on to the next moment, and to make that fear go away, was to say reach out and say something.

So, thank you for saying something. Or, if I was the one to reach out first, then thank you for reaching back. In the 26 years I’ve been alive, so many the moments I’ve had have been like that one–terrifying. But you made that moment a bit less terrifying for me. And I know we’ve shared lots of great moments since then.

I’m glad things aren’t so scary anymore.

Thank you all for reading. I wish it hadn’t been so long since I last posted. I was a bit busy, and kept feeling like every time I tried to write, I’d end up writing about nothing. The old “Writer’s Block”, I guess.

I don’t really know the cure for it other than to keep trying, even if I write a few posts about mostly nothing. I’m going back and forth on the something-to-nothing ratio for this particular post. The word “moment” no longer looks like a word to me, but I think overall I actually feel pretty good about this one. So I guess we’re off to a good start! I hope to post more frequently again soon!

Thanks again – Josh