Happy birthday, birthday boy

Today is my birthday. That is to say, I’m writing this on my birthday. Turns out, I continued to procrastinate and took more than a month to finally publish. Which is crazy considering how much I’ve thought about it.

It’s one of the big ones. A milestone. Leading up to it, I was scared I would be profoundly sad. I have a history of getting depressed on my birthday. Or thought, maybe, I would be profoundly introspective or disappointed. Or even, just maybe, happy. As it turns out I’m not profoundly anything. Reflective, perhaps? Older, I guess. Though I haven’t felt my age since I was 20. Feels like I’m maturing in reverse dog years. Which is probably more true than I’m comfortable admitting.

I’ve literally been meaning to start this for years. Like, five years. A lot of people have told me to do this, that I’d get a lot out of it. It would help me. They came and went but the whispers remained.

Wanted to be a writer for a long time but there’s always been an excuse to not-do-a-thing. Fear of effort. Fear of failure. Terrified of embarrassment. The wrong kind of friends snickering at any form of enthusiasm. Validation issues and a definition of cool entrenched in the shrug-it-off zeitgeist of the 90’s. According to the internet at large, it’s a common feeling. A generation lost to passive aggression.

No more lack of effort. Getting used to embarrassment (or realizing that no one is actually paying enough attention to care) is a fucking tough road but I'll be damned if I die without trying.

I’d better not fucking die soon.