I Am So Wise Now

Now that I am 40 I think we can all agree that I am probably pretty wise. I am not saying that I am like a guru or anything but if anyone wanted to seek me out to find the meaning of life I won’t blame them.

Think of as the next Glennon Doyle or Oprah or whoever or the dude equivalent of those ladies.

About a year and a half ago, I took my birth date off of my Facebook profile because I didn’t think it needed to be so publicly available. Well, I tried to take my birth date off of Facebook. I couldn’t figure out how to do it or they made it too hard to do, so instead I listed my birthday as January 1st instead of the real date. The result is that these days I sometimes receive Happy Birthday messages on January 1st. Sometimes I receive them from people who have known me a long time. Sometimes I receive them from people who have celebrated my birthday with me in July on multiple occasions and they aren’t people who are being in on the joke.

This used to annoy me, but now that I am old and wise, it doesn’t. I also used to get annoyed when I would get birthday cards in the mail long before my birthday. You see, I have many people in my family with July birthdays. For example, my old sister’s birthday is just a few days before mine and she goes on vacation right around her birthday. When I would receive a card on July 13th, which is 11 days before my birthday, I used to feel like I wasn’t unique enough to have my birthday card sent out special for me.

Now that I am old and wise, I get it now. Life if hard. It is hard to tailor experiences unique to every individual in every interaction or even for that matter provide an individual experience on a person’s birthday. Sometimes a card is going to come early or sometimes you are going to miss a person or two entirely.

I am very guilty of this especially lately. I have remembered several friend’s birthday’s in the past year (I have a gift for remembering birthdays), on the day of said friend’s birthday, and said nothing. I didn’t send a card, an e-mail, or even a Facebook message. I have remembered people but not done anything about it. For some of these people it was a big birthday too. If you are one of those people and you read this blog, I am sorry.

In the past year, when I did send a card, often I would sit down and write out several cards at a time. Then when it would come to time to mail them, I would think to myself, “This is way too early to be sending out this card, but if I wait and set it aside, I am going to forget, so I must send it now even though it is too early.”

So I must forgive myself. And I must forgive others. And I must remember that not everyone reads Facebook. And I must remember that though I tell everyone I know about my blog, not everyone reads my blog. After all, there are only so many hours in a day and I must remember that my blog is not everyone’s #1 priority or even their #9 priority.

If I am being 100% truthful, I must admit though that now that my mother has passed away I sometimes hold it against people who have not expressed their condolences about her passing. There are people who if I were to run into them I might feel a certain level of distance from them since they did not reach out after her death.

Yet again, I must remind myself that not everyone who has a Facebook profile reads Facebook. I must also remind myself that I have not always known how to respond in the past when friends or family of mine have lost a loved one. I am sure I did not always do the right thing. I think losing someone you love teaches you how to treat others who have lost someone they have loved. So I must forgive or at least give them the benefit of the doubt.

It is a work in progress.

I am so wise now! But actually I am very flawed.