Like most people, I get stuck on all the ways I should be better. I’m in my early forties and I still see so much more I need to work on. I’m still too impulsive. I still have a low threshold for external stimuli as well as a piddily amount of mental bandwidth when it comes to active listening. I veer on the road when I see a hawk. Or raven. Or crow. I don’t like to cook. Or shop in grocery stores. I often assume I have more time and money than, in reality, I actually do. I need more exercise. I can go on...but I won’t.
The point is, I have a laundry list of stuff I need to improve on. So it always strikes me odd when I realize I have had growth. We rarely notice it when we do. It doesn’t help that people will harp about anything wrong but once you do it and get over it, people just stop talking. That’s it. Once in a while you’ll find someone who not only notices your improvement but says something like, “Hey you, that’s good!” and hopefully not in a condescending way. But usually it’s dead silence. So you don’t really get the gold mark, and like an adult, you deal with that. Onwards, and all that crap.
Recently my friend was telling me about the birthday party she took her daughter to over the weekend, and all the festivities and fun. A few days earlier she had mentioned she was going out to buy the birthday boy/girl a gift and I asked if she was bringing her daughter along and, being the wise maven she is, she said, “hell no,” which is the right answer.
Because let me tell you, to do otherwise is to court chaos. I should know. As a child, I always went with my mom to shop for a birthday gift for the party I was to attend. As a mother, I question why she brought my high-maintenance ass anywhere, but I’m thinking it had a lot to do with having flighty teenage sisters at home who were rarely on planet earth, much less, able to provide genuine supervision, so I got to ride shotgun with Moms. Just my mom, me, and my expectations.
Inevitably, I would start enthusiastic for the other child. I would be pleased as punch to think up different toy ideas for their birthday. But I would soon see something that would spark my interest. I would say, “Well, I don’t know about this for my friend but I sure would like one of these….somedayyyyy.” And my mom would catch on and be like, “Put that down, this isn’t for you.” And all at once I would remember how much I truly hated this part of the gift buying process--the part where I got nothing. Nothing. I was all for getting my friend a gift. But how about, just for fun, we get me one too?
I like to think I touched a chord in my mom’s soul and that’s why she eventually relented and bought a small packet of stickers or a punching balloon, a coloring book, or Play-doh. But the truth is, I was a melancholic menace until she relented and bought me, poor little me, just a little something.
The birthday party that followed always had me ready to leave before I arrived. The external stimuli and general jacked-up glee of parties greater than three kids in attendance usually left me feeling awash, untethered, and vaguely shaky. I did warn you that I was high-maintenance. Looking at pictures of my childhood self during these parties catch me pale-faced and wide-eyed. I look as if I just came back from a warzone that rendered me mute.
But yet, there I was, ready to pony up to the next party, any chance I got. And I think it is that impulse that led me to the person I am today. I love throwing parties for others. I love giving gifts. Giving others joy makes me glow, warms my cackly dark heart. I don’t usually need to purchase something for myself anymore. I’m proud to say I’ve outgrown that impulse, that special type of materialistic FOMO. No one has given me a gold star yet, but that’s alright. Onwards. Just don’t ask me to cook.
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