This week’s prompt pushed me to a really interesting mental place, so I’m going to get right into my reflection this week.
What does your birthday mean to you?
Answering the Question: Don’t Look Directly At Him!
I was blessed to spend 34 with some of my closest friends in LA, and even some who happened to be in town from New York. It was a perfect weekend, complete with a Barbenheimer double feature and a pool party. You can check out some of the photos and the recap on my Instagram.
From this video, you’d certainly think I was in my element. Letting myself eat cake, being serenaded by friends, and putting on my best Lydia Tár impression (and please enjoy the “Hard to Love” hat I found at Black Market Flea a few months back). As one friend put it in the comments, “you’re the only person i could watch conduct their own happy birthday without vomiting.”
And I love that for me.
But appearances are deceptive. In that moment, conducting was the only thing I could think to do. Look at where my head (since you can’t see my eyes) is moving during the song. Frequently, I’m looking down or straight ahead. When I look up, where it would appear my friends are standing, I hold those angles for very brief moments in time. Most of the song is spent with me locking eyes with the cake, rather than those around me.
So when I tried to approach the subject of birthdays in my journal this week, I set out to figure out why I was so avoidant, to understand what made me so uncomfortable in that moment. Clearly I must have been, because why else was I avoiding looking at those who love and celebrate me?
The easy answer is that I don’t like attention. While that’s partially true (as I’ve always said, the line in The West Wing that has always resonated with me most is when President Bartlet says to Josh Lyman, “You know what the difference is between you and me? I want to be the guy. You want to be the guy the guy counts on.”), I don’t think that’s what was at play here. These weren’t strangers, I wasn’t tearing the spotlight away from others. This moment was my birthday. I deserved to be celebrated. And, like many others, I enjoy getting those happy birthday messages and wishes. Every notification on Twitter, every text, every call warms my heart and makes me feel loved. It’s nice to know people are thinking about you.
So if it’s not that, what is it? Why was being sung to so uncomfortable for me?
The difference between the public song and the private messages is right there: public vs. private. Reading a card, responding to a Tweet/text, accepting a call…there’s a layer of removal and privacy in processing the message. Nobody is there to see how I take the words but me.
But when somebody (or somebodies) sings “Happy Birthday” to you while standing right across from you, there’s no hiding. There’s no shield. There’s no wall. You’re there, right in front of them, laid bare for them to see.
And I think, subconsciously, that scares me.
Am I worthy of this attention? Will they see me for my flaws if I look them in the eye too long? Will they stop singing if I do something wrong and they see my imperfections? What if this is all a bit?
From another angle, I tried to investigate why this way of being seen makes me feel so uncomfortable, whereas I have no problem with public speaking. The unending glare from the crowd is the same, but the power dynamic is different. When I’m giving a speech, I retain control. The audience is mine to, quite frankly, manipulate with my performance, and I can choose what parts of me they’re able to see and engage with. But when being sung to we are inert, we are being performed at. There is no control, we simply sit and accept.
In reaching that conclusion, I can see the long shadow my former self casts. Insecurity is the inner wound that manifests this discomfort, and its an insecurity from a part of me I’ve been divorcing for a long time now. Perhaps this too is a behavior I’m now ready to shed, and recognizing this behavior is the first step towards doing just that.
How do you feel about being sung to on your birthday? What’s that experience like for you?
Something for the Weekend
In The Washington Post, Christine Emba has offered a fantastic look at our masculinity crisis. This excerpt below hits at what I think is the most important part of her writing:
I’m convinced that men are in a crisis. And I strongly suspect that ending it will require a positive vision of what masculinity entails that is particular — that is, neither neutral nor interchangeable with femininity. Still, I find myself reluctant to fully articulate one. There’s a reason a lot of the writing on the crisis in masculinity ends at the diagnosis stage.
The article in full is worth a read, but I would encourage you, especially the men here, to figure out a way that you can be a part of the solution, a part of identifying what a reformed manhood looks like. We all know the bad, but what is the good?
Something for you to think about.
See you Sunday!
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