zilla

Yesterday was my 26th birthday. I always get really anxious on my birthday and tend to take it out on my loved ones. Last year, I purposefully quarantined myself, spending the day alone. I don't remember what I did. My ex-boyfriend, on each of the birthdays we were together for, would jokingly call me a "zilla" as in a mutation of "bride-zilla." So last year, in an effort to resist my supposed tendency toward this, I spent the day alone until going to dinner with him and my parents.

This year, I didn't even really think about this. I felt sort of whatever about the whole thing; 26 shmany shmix. It feels like a nothing year, adulthood purgatory. But I didn't feel like I needed to do the whole quarantine thing. D and I happened to sleep separately, so I woke up alone. I was a little bit late to work but let myself off the hook. I realized I had an immense amount of anxiety over whether anyone at work was going to know it was my birthday. I walked myself through a variety of scenarios as I walked in. When I sat down, Mark said "Happy Birthday" very positively, so I relaxed. Later, everyone surprised me with cupcakes and I was pretty awkward about it, thanking them way too much, I think. I tried to make a joke about mid-summer birthday trauma, but it didn't land. Later, Z facilitated a surprise flowers and champagne delivery from Liv, my gallerist.

I went to MNZ after work in an attempt to "treat myself" but everything was kind of awful. Nothing fit right, but I knew that this was not my fault, so I didn't feel too bad about myself. I bought a decent top, mostly for the sake of it.

I went down to Chinatown and met D. He had gotten me some extra birthday gifts in addition to a larger and extremely sweet one. They were: keys to his apartment and a humidifier because I'd been complaining endlessly about my dry nostrils. He also gave me a beautiful note that made me cry on the way to the restaurant.

We had a lovely dinner and I stopped feeling birthday anxiety. Then we went back to his house and had some champagne and did some drugs and Natasha and Edie came over. Then we went to Karaoke.

Karaoke was nice and I was glad to see everyone who showed up. I got pretty drunk and sang a lot, I guess. There was only one bummer person, which is my fault anyway; I invited her.

I realized that this bummer woman reminded me of this other bummer woman that Ellen and I had met over the weekend. Both of them fall into my least favorite category of person: "the open wound." Both of these women are incredibly annoying, though I'm sure well-meaning, and naggy. I told Zoe that I think it boils down to them having this attitude of like "I deserve better" or "Don't you see how HARD it is to be me." Now, I'm thinking about the bummer woman from my birthday, and I do feel bad for her. I know for a fact that her life has been spectacularly shitty in ways that I can't even imagine. But still, I think her attitude could improve. Anyway, I don't want to be mean to these women who probably are having reasonable difficulties in one way or another. I've already spent so much time shitting on them.

It's mostly just that I would hate to be them or be seen as being like them. To be needy and lacking in self-awareness or esteem. Makayla sent me this piece from the Paris Review, "The Crane Wife," about this woman who calls off her wedding and it's all about how she made herself be ok with her fiance's total shittiness. It was maybe not the greatest piece of writing but it was interesting and relatable, which in turn felt a bit embarrassing, realizing how unfortunate most of 2017 and 2018 was.

I was texting with Zoe and she said that it seems that I mostly have dated men who are yielding and that I don't diminish myself in these relationships. This is why my relationship with my ex-boyfriend is ultimately sort of embarrassing for me–that from the outside I could appear self-possessed, but then actually be (barely) functioning with such a tiny space allotted for me. Not sure who does the allotting, maybe it's a collaborative process. I'm willing to take the blame in a sense, because I took part in that squishing feedback loop. The reality of how that relationship functioned runs so opposite to how I think people might perceive me–even just people who know me more professionally–that afterward it feels a bit like, "can I trust my own view of myself!" "Am I a pushover?" "Am I a totally deferent shit-eating personality type?" The good news is that as soon as we broke up, I felt like myself and it turned out I wasn't taking shit or making rotten deals in other other parts of my life, just in the relationship! I do think that I do this thing where I bargain away my desires in the interest of what seems to be ease, or self-sacrifice. I think the desire to sacrifice myself in these moments comes from an anxiety that I'm a totally high-strung, bulldozing narcissist. So it's like penance or something.

Anyway, I'm no longer particularly interested in punishing myself for some unnameable original sin of my personality. My birthday anxiety came and went; I mostly handled it ok. I didn't snap at anyone except for Ellen for some reason, but I apologized and she knew I was mostly kidding anyway. At my most anxious, D hugged me and we sat on the couch, and he said he understood how I felt and that it was fine and sometimes just how it goes. Natasha got me a nice cake that said "We love you, Guitaria!" Everyone mingled and seemed to have a nice time. Zoe and I did our usual teenage dirtbag duet. Everyone went to Clandestino afterward and sat and talked about nothing.