My birthday has been over for 42 minutes at the time of this sentence.
But to be fair, I was born at 11:56 pm on the night of January 23rd (year of our lord 1981), so in a certain sense right now feels more like my proper birthday than this time last night.
Let’s start with the presents:
First, God (or the Universe or Whatever) gave me some real nice fog last night and tonight. Fog is always so pretty and mysterious and foreboding. A rather perfect metaphor for God. Maybe.
Casey got me a vacuum. Which, if the genders were reversed here would be seen as a cliche and tone-deaf gift (according to sitcoms and comic strips in newspapers), but I needed a vacuum and was excited to get it. I didn’t look excited though (see: autism), so I had to reassure her a lot that I really am excited about it. That she doesn’t suck (the vacuum does but in a good way).
I made a post on Facebook a few weeks ago asking people to send me postcards for my birthday. So far, I have received one. Which is honestly better than I expected. I suspect more are on their way.
Oh, and my boss got me a full night with another security guard shadowing me. We did one patrol together and I learned so much about guns and about how Biden is just letting anyone into the country and no one is going to take his guns away and the only thing he loves more than his guns is his wife (he has three children).
Luckily though, the guard shack is just big enough for one person to sit in it. So I am here, writing out these words and he is seemingly asleep in his car.
That’s the presents wrapped up (get it?), now on to the presence (?) (does that work as a pun?)
I spent the majority of last night reading this here diary. I thought it would be fun to read through every entry I wrote around my birthday throughout the years.
And first, egads, I have been writing on diaryland for 22 years now. Jesus on a duck, that’s a long time.
My first entry was just a few days before my 21st birthday in 2002. I was on staff at my pastor-dad’s church.
The diary entries throughout my twenties were fairly wild. Not very much was disclosed in detail, but birthdays seemed to be big milestones.
One that stands out is for my 23rd. I was an inner-city missionary at the time but struggling with my faith. My entry on here just said something like “My parents are coming up to see me for the weekend and are bringing my good friend Chris.”
But I never disclosed that this was the night when Chris convinced me (without much resistance) to do far more “sin” than I ever had up to that point.
It was a quick progression from comedy club to bar to nightclub to strip club.
My first time to ever see a naked woman in real life.
It was also my very first kiss on the lips.
Given to me by a stripper who (if my memory is correct and it most assuredly isn't) looked like Betty Page and called herself Mary Jane.
She kissed me on the lips because she said I looked terrified and she has a soft spot for cute nerdy boys like myself. It is cliche, but I felt like I was floating.
She did not know, of course, that I had vowed that my first kiss would be on my wedding day.
I knew I should feel ashamed and guilty about how quickly I gave that up.
But much like another pastor’s kid, Katy Perry, I kissed a girl and I liked it. The cat was out of the bag. I would remain in the church for another year, and remain a virgin for a bit longer than that, but this began something.
Happy birthday.
Most of the birthdays in my twenties were debaucherous.
But in my thirties, I began the more current pattern.
Pain and sickness, twelve years of it now.
Depression and aimlessness, kind of always, but much more pronounced on birthdays.
The 23rd of January went from a day of escape to a day of reflection.
Funny how age does that to a person.
I can’t help but note, of course, how often my birthday entries and the ones surrounding them have expressed longing for the end of my journey.
My birthday in 2019 was spent in a mental hospital after a near-suicide attempt.
Every birthday since has contained an echo of those feelings.
This year was no exception.
I am a 43 never-married underpaid security guard. I have crippling OCD and depression. My health is failing at an alarming rate. It’s hard to have bright and dreamy thoughts about the future.
Reading through the last twenty-two years has seen me go from bright and idealistic to something so sad and frozen.
I guess that’s time for everyone, right? The oldest tale in the book.
But I also note how when I turned 25 I called myself “old and tired.”
I note that this is all perception.
So is my feeling of hopelessness.
What I want to give myself for my birthday is
Real confidence and comfort in my own skin
Renewed feelings of safety around my sexuality and desire
Vibrancy, kindness, maybe even a dash of optimism.
I want to see and seize opportunities. I want to breathe in deep wherever I am.
I want to touch and be touched in spiritual and physical ways.
I want to live, God damn it.
I want to be alive.
Happy birthday, kiddo.
Old as shit, still figuring it all out.
As it will ever be from here.
1:29 a.m. - 2024-01-24
Recent entries:
There is a Morrissey song called "Spent the Day in Bed" that is fitting here as a title - 2024-03-28
I don't know - 2024-03-08
Contemplations on a sexless Valentine's Day - 2024-02-15
Pushover Pt. II - 2024-02-06
Pushover - 2024-02-03
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