As might be thought, I’ve posted to this webspace a few times on this date, namely here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. A couple of those posts have been more or less targeted ruminations on my birthday, and a couple of others make mention of it, but in the main, I largely treat my birthday as being just another day, the work I need to do still needing to be done and having nobody else to do it, and I take no great pride in simply surviving again when my life, despite such complaining as I do about it, is relatively good and easy. There are other things at work in the world, clearly, with elections having been conducted and the changes to policies that will inevitably follow about to be rammed through, and that’s in just the one country; my having made it to forty-four today is of small concern, more to me than to most, but not more than makes a minor mention.

It’s not entirely up to me, of course. People whose opinions matter to me have already started celebrating it, and my therapist has reminded me–rather pointedly; it’s not a new discussion–that I should let them do so, that they do it out of love for me and that I ought to let them show that love. There have been and are the social conventions to consider, as well, and such conventions, even if all they do is signal that people are adhering to social norms, are worth considering; while it is the case that some norms are obnoxious, those that indicate people’s awareness of each other are not among them, and I happen to think that, yes, we could all do with being more polite than we are. (Polite and mannerly are different things; you can be one without the other, certainly, as I have discussed and as others have.) So I may grumble a little about being at the center of attention when I didn’t do the work (and I didn’t; I was along for the ride at best while others did a lot of labor on my behalf), but that’s pretty much all I can do about it–aside from trying to work through my thoughts where others can see me do so.

That is, after all, what this little bit of writing is: me taking a few minutes to consider how I feel and figure out what it is that I think about what all is going on around me today. That’s honestly what most writing is: working from feelings to figuring out thoughts. (I was trained in part by people who followed the late Bruce Ballenger; I am not ashamed to acknowledge my influences.) I don’t know that I’ve arrived at any firm conclusion, admittedly; it has only been a few minutes, because the work I do still needs doing, and there is still nobody else to do it. But that I have gotten to the point of a perhaps still grudging acceptance is at least part of what I’ve needed to address.

Even on my birthday, I’m happy to write for you; fill out the form below if you’d like me to do it!

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