Yet Another

It's my birthday today, and since I'm writing this in advance, I can only hope that I'm coping with it well. As in most years, I have dawdled about planning anything. The time when I should be thinking about it is the Christmas season, and I'm just treading water during that time. I just begin to think about it for real after the new year, and every day finds me briefly trying to think of something to do and then quickly giving up.

I finally have a faint plan, although as is fashionable, I have pushed it to the nearest available weekend night. There is a burlesque show I'd like to see, and so I'm hoping to do that on Friday. It should be a pretty good time, and most of my friends are of the sort to enjoy that. Some are not, which I can respect. It's just as well to pick something that will put some people off, because as much as I want everyone's attention, I react poorly when I have it.

The key thing is that the traumatic experience of getting older be mitigated by the presence and pleasant company of at least the few very good friends that a person has. Under ordinary circumstances, being an introvert, I'm energized more by solitude and quiet, but that is not the case on my birthday. I really have to be with people I like. Some people are evidently able to ignore their birthday, and if I could do that, I would not involve people, but I am apt to fixate on it anyway.

I am cautiously optimistic that I will get through this one well enough. I hope that next year I will manage to get on the ball earlier, so as to ease the stress that is bad enough already. Perhaps while I am on the roll dealing with this year, I can knock out next year as well. Probably that will not happen, so I will just have to face up to it then as I am doing now. Still, circumstances might change enough that it is easy next year. One can always hope.