Birthdays, Productivity, and Wasting Time

Today is my birthday. I have now traveled around the sun a total of forty one times. Unlike other years, I have no great insights into personal growth, finding myself, or goals for self-improvement.

We have very few plans for the day and I literally (like really I mean it) have no interest in getting “things” to celebrate the day.

I did go to the thrift store about bought some sheets for rag rug fabric.

It’s still hard not to get swept up into the corporatization of celebration. It’s so easy to want to “treat one’s self” for a special occassion: special food, a non-essential item that I had been thinking of. But this morning I’ve been feeling a bit put off by the world and am satisfied with the gift of food, shelter, clean water, and the love of my family which is really the best gift I could ask for.

There’s also a strange feeling that I need to do something special with the day, before it runs out, as if tomorrow doesn’t hold the same promise and opportunities that this day holds. It feels like I’m supposed to do the most bestest and funnest things to celebrate my existence, as if existence isn’t the bestest thing of all. It feels like if I don’t crame enough Celebration!TM into this twenty four hour period, that I’ll have wasted the day.

Please don’t take my cynicism as cannon. If you get joy out of celebration and gifts and special occasions, that’s wonderful! And don’t get me wrong, I am especially grateful for my existence and the gift of being born as an adoptee who might not have gotten the chance at life, or even of a completely different existence where I might not have become the person that I am.

But I do have memories through out the last forty one years of the feeling of disappointment at the end of May 22 that I didn’t do the things I wanted to do to celebrate, that I was called to much more mundane tasks at in classrooms or at jobs. I remember one birthday spent driving to see family members that wanted to celebrate and literally the whole day was in the car.

So when I think today about what I want to do with my time, I really want to celebrate the choice to do nothing at all: to snooze on the couch or play Roblox or Minecraft with my kids, to stare out the window and watch the birds, to really do nothing at all. Because this is what we work so hard for, isn’t it? For the opportunity to not work. This is what all the conveniences of modern life are supposed to afford us: the chance to relax and ponder and daydream and play. I am the absolute worst for trying to cram too much productivity into each day, even if it’s not motivated by capitalism and motivated more by the desire to escape capitalism.

Today, then: I rest as a celebration to my existence. If you have the chance, feel free to join me in my celebration :)

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With the free time from not doom scrolling on Instagram, I’ve decided to challenge myself and commit to writing every day, mostly for practice, but also because I enjoy getting thoughts out of my brain and into something more cohesive. I was exploring the idea of having the paid version of this newsletter be a weekly dump of writing from the previous seven days.

Does this sound appealing? Am I oversharing? Is this taking up too much space? I would greatly appreciate your thoughts either in comments or as a reply to this email. <3