2 days until my 29th birthday. 4 days until Daylight Savings. 54° and raining on Highland Avenue.
Carter said I’m one of the only people he knows who cares about their birthday as much as I do. I do love my birthday. Likely because it’s a day where I get attention and don’t have to feel guilty for it or beg for it, which as a child I felt like I didn’t receive enough of, or whenever I did it was negative. I also love presents, but I like giving them more than receiving them (I really want these dinner plates).
Reasonable, I think, to think about life as before Covid and post-Covid. I remember on my “Covid birthday" some girlfriends and I went to a random restaurant in south Williamsburg. It was March 7th, 2020 and people were still out, but with an air of naughtiness. Some were wearing masks. I remember sitting at the table with my girlfriends feeling like we shouldn’t be doing this. I bought a Lemaire shirt that day, which was my first ever Lemaire purchase. I still love it (cost per wear, girl math, etc). I got a cake from Little Cupcake Bakeshop to cut that night at dinner. The year before, I went to a bakery alone in Tribeca and ate a cupcake by myself. In 2020, I turned 24. It turned out to be one of the worst years to date, but my birthday had in it all the joy that was left to squeeze out. Not even a week later I’d drive back home with my father who insisted we both wear N-95 masks for the duration of the 4-hour drive.
What ensued after this birthday was a slew of chaos. I decided to postpone my move to LA. I spent the wet-hot summer in New York City, returning just after Mother's Day. I sent letters long distance. I still have the box with all of them on the top shelf of my closet. I carry mementos everywhere, it’s not a unique thing about me, a lot of people do it, but I’ve always been fascinated by the past. I even used to dote on it, so much so that I’d end up living inside it (look at me now, even writing about it). All of 2021 I wished to go back to 2020. By 2022 I felt at peace with Los Angeles, with Hollywood, and with my relocation to the West.
I had many false relationships while I lived in New York. Grappling with that, with wanting to be seen. I want to be seen so badly. SOoooo badly!!! Sometimes I feel disgusted with how much I want others to see me. I even feel it in my nerves when I am hurling myself at someone, or a group of girls, or an authority figure. It has been interesting to look at how I hurl myself at women in search of friendship, versus how I have hurled myself at men. I think there is a similarity there, wanting validation.
I have been a bad friend in my life, something I have not been able to admit until recent years, and after many years of psychotherapy. After 6 years of seeing my therapist, I was able to look at things about myself that I really did not like. Even though I was aware of them, it was still challenging to break the pattern. I guess I’m writing this to hold myself accountable. I am free-falling, shrink-less. I think about her often, about what she would say, or if she’d be proud of me. I don’t know if it’s a bad thing. Maybe my relationship with her became enmeshed. I would text her often, in my hardest moments, and seek immediate attention, which I realize now, was potentially harmful. I don’t think I should be used to being responded to at a moment's notice, there’s a massive sense of entitlement there. I believed that most of my life I was such a good friend because of how fast I would respond, or how much I would give others validation that I never seemed to get back.
There have been moments that I shocked myself with my response, like when I called the cops on a party during my senior year of high school because I wasn’t allowed in. There was someone inside who I had a very fraught relationship with. He thought at the age of 13 I was stalking him. Really I would just call his home phone and ask to speak with him after school some days because I had a crush, but my reputation since that age around my small town was that I was a stalker. It lasted so long that I was shocked by my senior year, still not being admitted into a party that wasn’t even his. I was so fed up that I was fuming, so angry, I never ever wanted to feel that emotion. I was (and still am!) used to crying and making people think they should feel bad for me. It's gotten me this far. So I did something- I called the police. I was unlikable. Of course. I didn’t drink, so why should I care if they get arrested for doing it? They'd be in jail and I'd be home neglected. Is that a win?
I never understood that reputation. I resented Baltimore for a long time because of it. I wanted to be loved, but part of me must have loved being rejected. A self-fulfilling prophecy. I made it so.
People get exactly what they look for.
The way pisces run substack >>>> Happy birthday!
Happy almost birthday!