The original plan was to get this written and nicely packaged by your birthday or your party at the latest in lieu of a card, but between midsems and work and your party it got somewhat lost in the mix. Yes, I'm blaming your party on the tardiness of this message. What else am I supposed to do- accept culpability over my own time management? Preposterous.
I've never been big on birthdays. I've never been big on large, celebratory events of any kind, really. Or even small ones, for that matter. I don't make much of my own, and being the egocentric, mildly sociopathic individual I am, I lack the necessary empathy to understand why anyone else should do otherwise, typically preferring to spend the time between one challenge and the next pointlessly worrying or passed out from the exertion of the last.
Rest assured, this is not a simple matter of spite: It's simply that I lack the necessary energy to generate the enthusiasm required*. I once congratulated a pair of newlyweds on their marriage, and immediately spent the next three months in a coma for my trouble. Three years and 42 orphan-blood spa treatments later, I still haven't fully recovered.
So, it goes without saying that I am bad -appalling, really- at making messages such as this. It's simply not very "me" to wish anyone a happy birthday, and the amount of effort required to write something so fundamentally opposed to my personality might very well kill me.
That said, I feel compelled to congratulate you on your spectacular feat of not-dying for the past 21 years. I’m not entirely sure why- the sentiment seems to be emanating from some dark, decrepit, neglected corner of my deprived psyche, located approximately somewhere in my left breast. It’s weird, alien and altogether too squishy for my liking. Picturing it inevitably conjures an image of “squelching”, “moistness” and “damp”, none of which are particularly likeable qualities, though I do find its rhythmic beating oddly soothing. Perhaps it reminds me of happier days playing the piano while attending to the orderly ticking of the metrono- oh wait, never mind those days were miserable. My tutor would keep rapping me on the knuckles when I played a note out of time and my fingers would swell up like bright, neon sausages.
But I’m getting off track.
(If ever there was one.)
In any case, should the subtext be unclear for whatever unfathomable reason- for I think you’ll agree that my writing is nothing short of crystalline in its clarity- I do bear a mild fondness for you, despite your lack of obvious spines, fangs, tentacles, talons, or other similarly monstrous traits. No, I don’t get it either. Perhaps it would be explicable if you possessed some particularly striking deformities- warts, goiters, etc., but alas you do not. Truly, a mystery. I honestly don’t understand how you can bear to look at yourself in the morning without sprouting at least an antler or two.
But perhaps, that is because I am petty. And superficial. And altogether blind to your finer qualities, like your impish humour and not-so-subtle dark streak. I would also commend you on your artistic eye, were it not for the fact that I’m convinced that you are, in fact, a fraud who simply has the good fortune to consistently stumble across marvellous lighting (or is it just a spectacular appreciation for window lighting that I spot upon your Instagram?).
(But no, seriously, great work.)
Then again, I suppose it is only fitting that you should happen upon such good lighting, for if there is a single quality to you that I find most intolerable, it must be your seemingly innate ability to bring light to those around you- to suffuse our mud-covered lives with a breath of levity and joy that encourages a sense of openness and possibility…even hope. There are moments where you appear to walk without shadow, as if all mortal concerns had been disconnected from your being to make way for a single, fleeting second of unadulterated, sanctified peace. As if the laws of physics did not apply, could not apply, and dared not to bind you to sordid reality.
Oh, how hateful it is.
It is not a feat I could ever imagine equalling, for all my non-existent talents. The shadows bind to me too tightly. Or perhaps it is I that bind too tightly to them? No matter- the distinction is irrelevant. This is after all, meant to be your card- unlikely though that that may seem- and it wouldn’t do to overwhelm it with excessive egotistical navel-gazing.
Of course, it’s probably all just an optical illusion. A singularly magnificent feat of Socha**, rendered all the more impressive by my own formidable practice. 3 years later, and I still have barely an inkling of what lurks behind that pearly, opaque surface of yours. Yours is a veil I cannot pierce; a riddle I cannot solve. A book that cannot be read. Do you have any idea how maddening that is? This is the kind of itch I haven’t had to endure since 4unit math in Year 12.
Part of that is doubtless my own fault- I haven’t exactly cultured a persona of trustworthiness and open discourse while in your presence, have I?
Well, consider this a break in tradition.
[REDACTED], you are a fantastic person with some seriously admirable qualities. Your existence is a boon that elevates those around you, and you carry a levity in your spirit that gladdens the heart and threatens to turn even the most taciturn reptile into a yapping puppy. And that is nothing short of miraculous. So much so, that it feels odd to wish you a “Happy Birthday”, because it is clear that we, the people around you, are the key beneficiaries of your presence, not you.
But I suppose, that may be the best reason for it.
Happy Birthday, [REDACTED]. May you find even a fraction of the good you confer upon us all.
…aannd now, I stand at the dreaded crossroads that I’ve spent so much of this over-long essay delaying.
I’m at a loss on how to continue.
As I so often do with you, I now find myself at a complete and utter disadvantage. It is not a position I usually find myself in, nor is it one I relish being in. For all our differences, I would, no bullshit, very much like to be counted as your friend. Not an acquaintance, or a colleague, but someone in whom you place at least a modicum of trust.
And in return, you shall have mine.
Under normal circumstances that might be a fair proposition, but I have no reason to suspect that you hold any interest in my openness at this stage. My only hope, therefore, is that I may be wrong.
*: Plus, smiling would like, totally ruin the whole “brooding loner” look I'm going for, and we couldn't have that. Besides, you know who else used to smile? Hitler, that's who.
**: From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igKea6GgTvI