Remembering 40

I found myself turning at about 2:00am last night. The power was out and the heat was unbearable. After tossing for another 30 miuntes, I gave up. I picked up my tablet and began to write a welcome address for a few young Adults I was to meet with in the morning. When I was done at 3:15am, I decided to go through my notes on the tablet and then I began to clean up by deleting old and unnecessary stuff.

As I cleaned up, I came across my 40th birthday plan.

When I turned 40, I had a breakfast meeting with 40 ladies. The idea was to rub minds and share with each other. All went south for me when we were on the second agenda for the day.

The feelings game was an avenue for everyone to share something with the group. Before the game started, a variety of sweets were passed around and each sweet had a question. The rule was to share based on the sweet (question) you picked. Somewhere, somehow, along the way, the game got lost. People began to get up and focus on me. “Mimi did this for me one time”, “Mimi is this to me”, “Mimi is that”… It seemed like it would never end, and because I don’t handle praise too well, I began to cry and the tears refused to stop. The entire morning just seemed to follow in that line. I began to ask myself if I had sent out a silent vibe. I began to question the whole thing. Did they think I asked them to come so that they could say good things about me?

I cried so much, people began to question the tears. I began to feel out of place. I’m ashamed to say today, that I escaped and disappeared immediately after the photographs.

A friend asked a year later why I had cried like that, I explained that the  praises and attention were too much for me and that hadn’t been the plan for the day. She didn’t quite understand and so I didn’t bother to try to explain.

Today, 2 years and  8 months later, I finally feel better and able to tell the story.

My 40th birthday Breakfast meeting didn’t go as planned but I sure learned plenty from that day. At least I know what not to do if there’s a next time and I’m sorry to say this; I know who not to invite.