40 is the new 40!

By all rights, I should have cried myself to sleep last night.  After all, technically I am 40, single, unemployed and have two cats and a bit of a muffin top.  Things couldn’t look much worse. 

However, I am a very optimistic person!  By this I mean hyper, so I am not going to let that stand in the way of my special day.  Because I am special.  My mom thinks so.

My friends have joined forces for a two day birthday extravaganza, I had two fantastic phone interviews Friday afternoon, a new guy in my life and the best real and chosen family anyone could ask for.  My core friend group is called the New Bardo Hotel and Conference Center.  It resides at the home of one of my best friends and is named after the Bardo in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.  It is a beatnik reference.  Bardo means “transitional state”.  We have been transitional since about 1997. 

When the New Bardo first formed in about 1997, there were three nerds from Microsoft (and I have the pictures to prove it) an arty chick and some bureaucrat that worked for the government (that is me).  We just wanted to embrace the weirdness of the Pacific Northwest and explore different subcultures.  We tried out cultures like the Goth Scene (my Goth Name is Obscuria and my outfits came from Hot Topic and Mercury),  the Rave Scene (yes, it gets capitalization and my Rave Name is Star-Sparkley because stars are shiny and my outfits came from my sewing machine and young children’s cast aways), Burning Man, the Swan Ice Sculpture Community, the We Are Waaaayyy to into Cats Community, and the Smoothie Community.  We laughed our asses off (mostly at Jess) and supported each other through deaths and births and breakups and personal crisis. 

 Because, when you became a card carrying member of the NBH, you joined a family.   

A chosen family.  I mean, we were drunk when we picked each other, but we still picked each other. 

 

In the mid 1990s in Seattle, there were several “tribes” in these subcultures.  The Church of Mez was the most prominent.  I heard it referenced as “an internet sex and drug cult ” by a conservative blogger which is hilarious.  The founder was a pioneer in the tech world, a fantastic human being, and a good friend whose friends decided to give him a church for his birthday one year because he already had everything else.  Our closest allies besides Mez were Spice Alley, Inertia Labs, Fey Abbey, Seventh Maze, etc.   

We had fun.  We were all professionals but in our spare time we would do things like throw epic parties including Phoenix Festival, Poop (don’t ask – it was at an undisclosed location in the forest), Earth Dance,  and even started a non profit called Dance Safe that educated young people about recreational drug use and provided harm reduction services at parties.  If you Google me, you will see references to our work in The Stranger, 20/20, MTV and the Seattle Times.  I am proud of what we accomplished – we worked hand in hand with King County Public Health, the Seattle Police Department and the media.  Special shout out to Chief Kerlikowske who handled the shooting deaths of several of our friends by a lone gunman on Capital Hill with compassion and extraordinary grace.  Although we didn’t always see eye to eye on the need for a safe place to talk about harm reduction, he accepted our work and presence. 

 

The truth is that through that this process of discovery and creativity, my friends scratched off the giant scab that settled on my soul.  I had become closed to possibilities and the universe and of the many things of which I was afraid. 

I believe that everyone has a critical time in their lives when they are able to make a decision to be who they want to become and chose the life they want.  Since the price you pay for being who you are is your life, you should take that seriously.  When the bill comes, I hope you got what you paid for. 

There are some moments that stick out in my mind:

 

J1 getting lost in his sweatshirt for 2 hours at a party in the forest and we had to tether him to the tent so he wouldn’t get lost.

 

J2 and I hugging it out on the floor of 2424 with Goldfish Bunny (umm, there is a back story here) and all the years since attending fund raisers and over bidding on beaver suits (umm, back story part two)

 

The night I met T and we discussed Ethan Allen vs Ikea furniture on the floor of a party at the artificial limb company, and the years we spent supporting each other through everything (Perl vs C ++?)

 

The unsuccessful behavioral based interviewing techniques for potential roommates with N that left us with roommates who, somehow, managed to get beans on the ceiling of the kitchen and all of the bizzaro HR questions we passed back and forth

 

The awesome years I spent laughing my ass off with N’s mossylocks impressions, the time he bent to kiss me and his construction hat fell on my face and broke my nose, the support he gave me through my mom’s death and the friendship he has offered me since we decided to part ways

 

Post date night post-mortem breakfasts with Max and runs to Home Depot (Do you only like me for my car, dude?  J)  And, I am the BEST wing man ever!

E, M and M – you are the best friends ever! You taught me how to chuck rocks and run and swing and have fun

B – my life has incredible possibilities with you.  I am head over heels (and I wear heels mostly to impress you).  I think you are funny and smart and sexy and gorgeous and can’t wait to discover more. 

 

Ice Castles and cats with laser pointer improvs with my colleagues, silly hallway dances and lots and lots of LOL Cats, laughter and hopefully professional tips

 

The people we lost, the cats we lost, the minds we lost…….

 

I have an amazing life.  I am grateful and humbled every day by the people who chose to call me their friend.   And in return, they can consider my love for them unconditional.

So happy 40^th birthday to me, I can’t ask for anything richer and I am grateful and humbled.