Your birthday's gift to you
Isn't about time your birthday gave *you* something?
On my friend JD’s birthday this year, he asked his friends for one spontaneous phone call at some point during the next 365 days.
“I love getting these calls,” he explained. “If I didn’t do something like this, there’s no way they would come on their own. You have a little friendship capital on your birthday. People are the most game to meet you where you want to be met.”
I love this concept. And I really tested it this year.
I have birthday baggage. It all stretches back to the time I invited my 11-year-old guy friends to see a movie starring Billy Crystal as a NBA referee.
It turns out it had almost nothing to do with basketball and everything to do with adult intimacy. “Forget Paris” was a romantic co-starring Debra Winger that I have never been able to forget.
I’ve always told myself that the trailer was misleading and I was bamboozled into thinking it was a different movie. And to my credit, there are *several* seconds of basketball in it and lots of talk of Billy Crystal working a referee. But looking back, this is exactly the kind of movie I would have wanted to watch at eleven. I was a secret soft boy and movies were the first place I learned to feel deeply. I was there for the basketball but I was also there for the Debra Winger.
Perhaps subconsciously, I wanted to see if they would come along for the ride.
But they did not; to this day they still make fun of me for this choice.
Since then, my birthday has been a source of discomfort. So a few years ago, I decided to scrap having parties. I’d just invite people to do a bunch of things I like doing at different dates, times, and group sizes. It’s been a valuable shift.
And so for this year’s milestone birthday, I had a super special batch of things in the works. Then, life got in the way.
In quick succession, I burned out, encountered some family health issues, freak accidents, and the tragic, sudden death of my step brother.
My birthday felt canceled. I couldn’t muster the energy to celebrate.
I had decided that this milestone birthday was a “portal” to the next phase of my life and it felt really sad to let it go. I happened to walk by the new Portal Exhibit in NYC which gives New York and Dublin a live view of each other. I remembered what JD said about birthday capital and it gave me an idea.
I sent a hail mary email inviting people to join me the next morning at the portal for a quick 20 minute ritual. I had no idea what I’d do, who would show up, and for the first time, I actually didn’t care. It was what I wanted to do and I would’ve been perfectly happy doing it by myself.
And of course, people were game. But minutes after I sent the email, the exhibit got shut down.
… apparently, nobody did a SWOT analysis and anticipated that someone might flash their boobs at the good people of Ireland.
I told everyone to meet me anyway.
A beautiful crew gathered and a ritual emerged: we jammed on what a portal means to us and which one we might be approaching in our lives. And then we wrote messages on posters for our future selves. The dark screen ended up being perfect. Because you can never really see what’s on the other side of the portal you’re approaching. One by one, we stepped forward with our message.
I asked future me to hold my fear of the unknown, which he gladly agreed to do. He knows what happens, so it’s not scary to him.
I told the story of my stepbrother and shared a few gifts he gave me. And then I told each person something I appreciated about them.
The Portal redirect allowed me to bring more rituals into my life, which is something I’ve been looking to do, and invite others to join me. I got to shift the focus off of me as a birthday celebrant and create a collective experience for people I care about. And I got to got to tell people how I feel about them, which I’m realizing doesn’t happen often enough unless I go out of my way to do it.
You have a little capital on your birthday, so you might as well do the thing that will make you feel the maximum amount of joy. On our ever-unfolding quest to become more ourselves, it’s an opportunity to plant a flag in a direction you want to go.
If your friends aren’t eleven-year-old boys, they’ll likely meet you there.
GLASSES UPDATE
I wrote recently about my strange and mysterious inability to wear glasses. I posted the article on the interwebs and someone I met 15 years ago suggested I try Neurolens, which helps people with extremely sensitive eyes see through super customized lenses. I went to a specialist and got tested and they told me they thought it was an issue with near-sightedness and gave me a new progressive subscription to try. I’ve got a new pair of frames that I can wear for several hours at a time! We’re making progress, folks!
BROCANTE UPDATE
I ended the mystery of Brocante with the idea that I was going to show up at the restaurant of the family that owned the building and see if I could get Marc his knife back. And I didn’t do it. There’s something that feels aggressive about showing up there by myself, so I need a sidecar to make it a little more playful. If you’re in New York and game for the adventure, let me know!
EARTHQUAKE WISDOM
On a Friday morning a few weeks ago, we had an Earthquake in New York City. We live with lots of physical challenges, but this is not one of them. “What were you doing when the city shook?” was water-cooler talk for days.
5 Rhythms is a “dance meditation” format created by Gabrielle Roth in the 70’s. The basic idea is that there are five rhythms of life, and that dancing them in succession around other people is a cathartic, spiritual, and moving release. I met a few people who told me it was “Better than any drug they’ve ever taken” and so I decided to check it out.
If you happened to have a view into the space, it would look like the wackiest thing: a room full of people totally absorbed in their own worlds, dancing poorly and with abandon to new age music. It’s as if they took the adage “Dance as though nobody’s watching” as a challenge. I found it difficult, interesting, and occasionally profound. When I really got into it, the world melted away.
On that Friday morning, we finished a rollicking 90 minute experience and the room went quiet … only to hear the sound of 100 phones going off with Emergency System Alerts. We were dancing so hard we didn’t notice the Earthquake.
I haven’t been able to think of a better metaphor for how I want to approach our meta-crises.
Wanna dance? It’s somebody’s birthday somewhere.
I want to call out how I appreciate all the little follow-ups to past posts!