Shire Years

I haven’t wanted to burden anyone with the following thoughts, so instead I will indirectly throw them at a wide array of someones. It’s much like shotgunning my melancholy into the void, hoping to minimize its impact on the world around me.

You see, these thoughts shouldn’t really carry any impact. It’s the same old feeling around my birthday. One of a lack of importance or visibility.

This feeling isn’t one I like to feed. It’s a huge underlying part of my worst qualities, and it drives me to be everything I desire to not be. But around August 11, it gets harder to shoo away. We equate the anniversary of our birth with a sense of meaning, and it lends itself to selfish thoughts. And oh, my sweet Ora, I am a sucker for those. I struggle to accept my place in the stories I get to share in this journey. The truth is always that I am just happy to have a place in the tales others tell, but I desire more than I let on, almost always. It’s simple, but it’s deceptively tricky.

I desire to be remembered. It’s a simple ask on the surface. But dig deeper, and you realize that it’s hard to guarantee a memory. I can’t control what will resonate with people in my life, their reverberations burning into my memory is no indication of a mutual impact, and even when one wants to remember, it’s not always even up to the individual if they do or do not. So this desire, as simple as it feels at first, is really, truly, an insane expectation.

These days, I try to adjust my desire a bit. I just want to provide a smile when I’m considered. Maybe not a memory as much as a vague sense of joy I can contribute to. It’s not easy. I want to be in your face always, constantly, for fear that I disappear when I’m not clearly visible. But I’m learning to trust that my memory is not that fleeting, even if I feel it only warrants a passing glance.

The people that have impacted me the most heavily, they wouldn’t believe it if confronted with the evidence. I spend a hell of a lot of time convincing myself I’m just similar, that I have made an impact on people when I’ve hoped to, and perhaps even accidentally. It sorta shines a light on the fact that we will not always weigh our own value the same way we weigh that of others. I don’t see what I bring to the table in a metaphorical or literal manner, but I can’t really insult those who insist it’s there and has value. It’s not where I should be in terms of self-worth, but it’s a step forward.

Soon, less than a week actually, I’ll enter a new decade. I still feel like the awkward teen, the scared 20-something, the man in his 30s, realizing he’s only just as lost as everyone else, and losing everything a couple times over as a case study in resilience. I don’t know what archetype my 40s will assign me. But I hope soon to enter my “Shire years,” where I don’t have to travel to the fires of Mount Doom, but can sit in my parlor with good company and better leaf, discussing the stories we’ve read, heard, told, and have yet to tell.

That would be a damn good way to celebrate a year’s passing, i think.