bids for connection [ birthday edition ]
my default setting makes it hard to celebrate frivolous things like my birthday, despite my deep love of celebrating the birthdays of others, I struggle with how to face celebrating my own. but this year, of all years, I resisted resisting.
I'm too practical to buy myself flowers, since they die. but we all do, don't we? so I let myself enjoy them. they were delivered to my door to my hands to my front porch and even the ground offered a few unprompted.
my resistance is (probably) discomfort. of being known. what could be more horrifying? being seen and having to admit that I too can cry when hugged for long enough. I kept the hugs short to avoid the crying. I mostly succeeded.
handwritten cards and pencil drawings, hands to hold mine, a circle that can't be broken, a bottle of champagne that definitely can. a buffet of every cereal you could ever want, as long as you like all my favorites. a mug as beautiful as the friend who delivered it. chocolate. more chocolate. some more.
a text chain with my cousins, birds as omens, books as offerings. s'mores in the rain, the most beautiful peach cobbler you've ever seen with three kinds of vanilla ice cream and where is Madagascar anyway?
every small bid to connect on a birthday is a reminder of the wonder of coexisting. BEING HERE at all is so improbable. the MOST likely thing is not existing. and yet here we are. so decidedly insignificant, why not take a moment for eye contact, for deep laughs, for sugar rushes.
44.
my birthday marks a hard year behind me rolling over into an unto future ahead of us all.
what we do know? a text message is a love letter, an hour of time is a gift, a spit take keeps me going.