Preemptive Retaliation

I’ve been making the joke to anyone that will listen that my life is half over. I am past my Best Before date and am now on the Use By. I’ve gone from the fruit bowl to the fridge in an effort to stave off the signs of over ripening – the wrinkling, soft skin, rubbery texture, sour taste, strange growths etc. With any luck I will last long enough to be fermented into something that fuels unhindered decisions.

I tend to get maudlin around my birthday. To throw out the obvious reason is that January is a black hole of expenses and festive hangovers, and everyone is too busy improving themselves that they can’t afford to celebrate anything else. But, also, I keep it quiet. It’s my birthday you say? Oh, who told you? Certainly not me.

Because I’m maudlin, ignore the rest of this. On you go. It’s ok.

There’s a part of me that doesn’t want attention. Let me grow tall as a wallflower and never intrude, providing aesthetic and flavour but not focus. Here’s one better – let me enhance those around me. Let me be accentuating colour to the feature wall, or the main piece of art. But! But, but, but, but! I also like being the centre of attention. From my late teens to my late twenties I threw cool parties in my cool flat. Hawaiian parties, costume parties, New Years parties and Edgar Wright parties. Horror parties, movie parties, string parties, Saturday Morning Cartoon parties, emo parties and sad parties and parties where I knew everyone, and everyone knew me. I loved them because I was pivotal in them, they couldn’t happen without me.

And, at the same time, I don’t want to be noticed. I don’t want to intrude. Enjoy yourself. Don’t mind me.

This dichotomy throws me for a loop on my birthday. I want to be simultaneously celebrated and ignored, important and irrelevant. Recently in work someone told me that I’m so very confident on camera. I’m a performer, and I have skills in presenting or hosting or being present, and I couldn’t disagree more. I enjoy being behind the scenes, editing videos and bringing a vision to life. Finding the way a video works well is like a puzzle. I slot things into place and the rest of it makes sense from there. Presenting is out of my comfort zone.

But there’s a quote from a movie I love, and abridged it reads, “If people call you a horse, then you’re a horse”. I think about that quote a lot.

So maybe I am deserving of the centre of attention. Maybe I shouldn’t be a wallflower. Maybe I should stand up for myself, and advertise myself.

Maybe.

But, then again, it is my birthday once more. And I’m feeling maudlin. So here’s a post that’s self important and only a little bit sad.