I’m old enough to remember pulling out the Sears catalog around the holidays and birthday times to pick out the things that I wanted for my birthday or Christmas. At some point, I realized that just dog-earring the pages with the gifts that I wanted wasn’t working, so I resorted to scribbling out the names (and prices?) of the items that I desired on paper. But after years of getting socks and not what I wanted, I gave up. Eventually I got to the point where I realized that if I wanted something, I had to get it for myself.
That was fine and I got pretty good about “gifting” myself when I saw something I wanted1. But every once in a great while this habit would irritate my significant other because it complicated the already complicated effort to anticipate things I wanted for birthdays and holidays. Oops. After posting my latest LEGO purchases, I was reminded by a friend of my habit of buying when I should wait to see what my birthday might bring. That was nice of her to suggest, but I’m not in any relationship that would have any birthday gift expectations, especially given how expensive LEGO and the other things that have caught my attention tend to be. Thus, the one wishlist that I still keep is mostly to make it easier for me to remember what it was that I was thinking about buying, or stuff that I thought would be “nice” but can’t quite justify at the moment. It’s like an Internet bookmark, so that I can go back to what I was looking at before without too much hassle. It’s more about the personal convenience than any expectations from anyone else.
I remember one year one of my Masters’ students gifted me an Amazon gift card for my birthday, which was extraordinarily nice and unexpected and almost too much, given that we weren’t close friends. Most years, especially when I was away from family and teaching in Florida, I spent my birthdays solo, people watching at a favorite pub. Actually my first year in Florida, I’d only been on the Full Sail EMDT team for a week but we all went out for sushi on my birthday and then the guys and I went to see some action movie. There was also one year my then-girlfriend threw me a surprise birthday party at a bar downtown attended by those work friends and that was amazing.
My last year in Florida, 2016, I let a bunch of friends know that I’d be hanging out at one of my favorite spots, The Eden Bar at the Enzian Theater, and was wonderfully surprised when a couple friends showed up to help me celebrate my last birthday in Florida. Even better, the same friends and more a month later helped me celebrate my last night in Florida again at the Eden Bar. Wow, I’m not sure what these memories have to do with pondering wish lists, except that maybe as we become adults, especially in later years, it has so little to do with stuff and more to do with connecting with friends and making these memories that I relish these eight-years later.
I still like the stuff, or I wouldn’t bother with the Amazon wish list.2 I guess wishlists, beyond the personal convenience mentioned above, are more about one’s evolution through understanding how we’re connected to one another and how we express our connections.
I played the game as a child, hoping that if I asked, I’d get, having no understanding of what anything costs or what my parents were going through for us to have what we already had. Then I grew to make the mistake, as a young person, that those close to me should already know what I want, without me having to ask or putting in the work to learn how to communicate with those I’ve loved. Oops. Now, I tend to not put it out there so that I don’t have to deal with disappointment or misunderstandings. I hate relationships that feel transactional. And, despite appearances, I’m still adjusting to whatever this stage in life I seem to be in, so I’m not so sure what I have to offer others, which makes me less comfortable being open to what others might want to give to me. Weird… we start out being like a bunch of baby birds with our mouths gaped open noisily begging for more, but that eventually changes to us saying, “no, that’s okay, I don’t need anything,” regardless of what the truth of the situation might really be.
Sorry, that went much darker than I wanted. I know that I’m one of the fortunate ones who is still here, able to turn around and see the road that I’ve travelled and remember all of the love and fun I’ve had along the way. It really isn’t about the stuff, but it is fun to have the stuff to remind me of everyone I’ve met and connected with along the way. I wish we were closer sometimes and I miss those who are not with us anymore… but given my penchant for taking pictures of everything all the time, there’s probably a picture somewhere with us sharing a knowing grin and a memory that neither one of us probably wants to explain. Enjoy.
(Birthday week in seven days!)
Tags: birthdays, daily random shit, family, friends, love, wish lists
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FOOTNOTES:- Being raised working-class, it was never anything outrageous or financially risky, just a little dessert to go with my normal fast food diet.[↩]
- I’ve been debating with myself about sharing my Amazon wishlist link. I’m not soliciting for gifts and am not fond of the appearance of being “gift needy” or some such weirdness. At the same time anyone reading this far into this article, including the footnotes, must be someone more than a passing acquaintance… So, for those who’ve read this far wanting the link, here’s my public Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2K29YULE3Q7OF?ref_=wl_share . Thanks.[↩]
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