I had lunch with a friend on Monday. The first twenty minutes was spent with him telling me he was irritated about my Day 200 post, "Broken." He told me I was way too hard on myself and that we are all broken in some way. No kidding. To be broken is to be human. And of course I'm hard on myself. I am continuous improvement junkie. Philip Seymour Hoffman died from a heroin overdose. I may go down from my addiction to hyper growth companies, change, and constant upping one's personal bar for herself. And I'm not joking.
When that bitch-slapping was over, he tackled my birthday. Primarily, why I dislike celebrating so much. And this was an even more challenging conversation. I had had this conversation over the weekend and there were some tears involved. Because I finally realized why I have shunned it for so long.
I won't bore you with the psycho-babble of my full understanding of why I dislike it. I will say this though. It has nothing to do with getting older. There are two pieces to it.
For one, it has a lot to do with having the attention focused on me. To expect that people would take time out of their busy days and stop to acknowledge me is hard to wrap my head around. Getting all the notes on Facebook? Sure, that's awesome. That's simple, and requires very little of people. I can get on board with that and feel comfortable with that level of attention. Expect you to go out of your way to send me a card or get me a gift? Come on now. That's too much to ask of someone.
And there was a second, issue about expectations that ran far deeper. After so many years of trying to avoid the celebration of my birthday, I finally understood. If I set my expectations really low on what possibilities I could hope for on that day, than I would never be disappointed. And than I realized that was a pattern in my life. Set the bar really high for myself; set it really low for what I expect from others. Then if anyone ever did anything nice for me, I considered it really quite awesome. Yes, I understand that's really messed up.
This is especially ridiculous thinking coming for a person who loves to do things for other people. I am happy to celebrate and creating gifts for others. I love architecting surprises and make people feel special. I have just convinced myself over the years that the only people who would actually genuinely want to do that for me are my parents.
So I promised my friend I would change my mindset. Thus, "Project Birthday Love." You can't change unless you understand something is wrong. And now, I get it. So while I will walk back into my office tomorrow and still be embarrassed with the notion that my friends in Austin bothered to think of me and send me something to show me they care, I will do my best to get over it. I love my friends, and they love me back. So I will accept the love, and tell myself if I enjoy celebrating them, maybe, just maybe, they like celebrating me too.
And as I bring this birthday to a close, I am in a fantastic mood. I am heading to bed tonight with clarity on yet another mystery from my past. I had a wonderful celebration with some people I love. And knowledge that while last year was not one of my favorites, I am going into this year with absolute confidence that I am going to crush it. 46 just might be my best year ever. I can feel it.
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