Draw a chair

…sometimes I’m bad at parties

I’m not great at drawing chairs. But I love drawing them because I find it challenging. It took me two weeks the first time I drew a chair to feel good about it, and then all I did was draw and paint chairs for a bit.

I did kind of the same thing with parties. I practiced.

I hated having birthday parties when I was a kid. They took a day that I was excited about and turned into into a nightmare of having to keep a bunch of kids entertained and happy on a day that was supposed to be about celebrating me. This is, I didn’t much like being celebrated. I still prefer to make my birthdays about anything else beside me. For awhile I would direct all the energies coming my way and produce a show, on my 40th birthday, I opened my venue/creative space a held 12 hours of performances and workshops and community hang outs. I love people enjoying themselves. I guess when I celebrate my birthday with people it’s so I can see folks enjoying themselves, because by proxy I also enjoy myself.

I don’t like surprises. That probably trauma related but I don’t need to unpack that now.

Today I was invited to a surprise party for a person I really like. I asked my kids if they wanted to come because there were going to be some gentle hearted kids there. They said no and I respect that. I mostly didn’t want to go to birthday parties as a kid either.

But today I set myself a task. Pick out a birthday present, and stay at the party for one hour.

The guest of honour was so surprised that she had to take a shower before coming down to celebrate. So me and my partner were left to socialize with a group of essentially strangers. Thankfully there were a couple people who were super excited to chat. One of them was a pre-teen who’d just gotten a snake. That was totally my jam. Listening to someone excitedly monologue about their hyper-focus is something I’m really good at, plus I taught teenagers, and if anyone needs an active listener it’s that demographic. They don’t get a lot of active listening. After about half an hour I thanked them for the chat and walked them over to a group of kids their own age and then went to converse with the grown ups.

That I find a little more difficult. The amount of mental gymnastics and social protocols that go into a four part conversation is mind boggling. You have to know when to jump in, when to ask questions, when to laugh…it’s like skipping double Dutch with four ropes. By the end I’m exhausted.

But I did it, and when the guest of honour arrived she was so excited and grateful that my partner and I had showed up for her birthday that it was absolutely worth it.

I’m also super uncomfortable with being in a room full of people drinking (trauma, again) and so we ducked out when my kids texted us to ask about dinner.

I may look like a hyper-social human to people observing me at work, or if folks have watched me running shows, or coordinating volunteers. But those are particular roles that I’m good at.

Mingling, multi-people conversations, those put me into hyper-vigilant mode. I’m still sorting all the things that were said and it’s four hours later.

But I did it. And I drew a chair. And I have this really great idea, and I think I’ve decided to self-publish my novelette because…I just don’t want to have to jump through the wickets of traditional publishing at this juncture in my life. Plus my book is really weird, and I want to let it be weird instead of trying to squish it into the pre-defined boxes.

…at this stage in my life I finally feel really good about who I am and who I’m growing into. I am finally trusting the voice in my head that says it’s okay to be me. And last night I tried a new deck called The Beloved Dead, and when I was attuning to it the first card I drew was this one.

…and it was a good reminder.

I’m sending birthday love to all the people who were born today, and who’d like it. I hope your next trip around the sun is a magical one. I hope you get to be you.

Heart,

Wake