Happy birthday, you
For You, Today
You will get thirty messages today and forget every one of them by Thursday. This one is still here next year.
On this earth
heartbeats, roughly
All of it counts.
Blow them out.
Tap each one. Nobody is watching, so take your time over the wish.
Tap each one out
Before the celebrating
You got through a lot this year.
Most of it you carried without making it anybody else’s problem, which is the thing about you that people consistently fail to notice.
There were months where nothing worked and you simply kept turning up anyway. Nobody threw you a party for that. So consider this a slightly delayed one.
For the year ahead
What I hope this year gives you.
- 01A quieter year, that asks less of you than the last one did.
- 02The job, or something better than the job.
- 03Fewer emails sent after midnight. Nothing good has ever come of those.
- 04The trip you have had a tab open for since February.
- 05More of your own time, kept back rather than given away.
- 06And whatever you actually want, which you are famously bad at asking for.
The year, in pieces
- January
The month that went badly
You did not tell most people it was happening. I only know because I was there.
- May
The thing you pulled off
You were convinced it would fail right up until it did not, and then immediately moved on to worrying about the next one.
- August
The trip
Four days, no plan, and the best you have looked all year.
- Recently
The ordinary evening
Nothing happened. You were happy. I noticed, and did not say anything at the time.
A year of you
The thing nobody says to you.
People tell you that you are kind, and you are, and it is not the interesting part.
The interesting part is that you are reliable in a way that costs you something and you have never once mentioned the cost. Things do not fall over when you are holding them. Almost nobody notices how rare that is.
I noticed.
For today
The one you played all summer
For the rest of the year
Today ends. These do not.
Everything on this page is still true on a Monday. That is the difference between this and a card.
You have had this year. You are still standing and still kind, which is a considerably better result than you are giving yourself.
Things do not fall over when you are holding them. Nobody says this to you because it looks effortless from the outside. It is not.
Be unimpressive for an evening. Nobody is marking it and there is no prize for consistency.
You have been right about every decision you agonised over. This one is keeping you up. Historically, that is a good sign.
My side of it
Things I will do this year.
- 01To notice a bad month before you announce it.
- 02To celebrate the thing you pulled off for longer than you allow.
- 03To be the call you make first, not the one you make once it is handled.
- 04To take you somewhere with no plan at least once.
You spend most of the year
making things easier for everyone else.
Today is the one day
that is genuinely yours.
Right. Properly, now.
Raise a glass
Here’s to the year you have had.
- To the year you had, including January.
- To everything you carried without mentioning it.
- To four days with no plan.
- And to a quieter year than the last one.
One more thing
You are not working that weekend.
I have already spoken to the people who would have asked you to.
It is handled. You are going.
Before you go back to your day
You will read this between two other things and tell me later that it was lovely, and then never mention it again. So I have put the important part where you cannot skim past it.
You are the person people call when something has gone wrong, which means you spend a lot of your life being useful and not much of it being celebrated.
Today you do not have to be useful to anybody. That is the actual present.
— happy birthday
One more year of you
in the world,
being quietly good at it
while nobody
was keeping score.
I was.
Happy birthday.
Go and have a completely unproductive day.
made for you