So...It's My Birthday.

In conversation with myself.

cw/ discussions of grief and death

1 year old me.

One of the most interesting phenomena that occurred as a result of all the mask wearing is that when I talk to myself—which is an often occurrence—I’ve moved those conversations outside of my head and onto my tongue, to my lips where I now genuinely mumble out entire scripts to myself when I’m at home or browsing the produce aisle at my local Lidl. 

I’ve also always written things to myself on my birthdays. Letters. Poems. Small sections of prose. I get really in my head on the anniversary of my birth and removing those thoughts and pasting them on paper has always helped with making my brain feel less cluttered. 

The thing is, my inner monologue is pretty consistent all year round. It gets to the point where I genuinely feel my social battery deplet after talking to myself for too long; I ask myself questions, avoid said questions, rant to myself, praise and curse myself in the same breath. I think the best way to explain what happens in my brain is to liken it to journaling; however, instead of these wandering thoughts hitting paper, they just bounce around my brain, ricocheting off the inner surface of my skull. And sometimes they are heavy enough to fall, to become grounded and earn deeper thought, but other times they stay in the air, light and untethered until they fly right out of my ears, to never be explored again. 

Taking this concept of speaking to myself, I decided I’d write out a conversation with myself for my 22nd and, if I felt comfortable enough to do so, I would share it here…on Substack.

Given that you’re reading this…clearly I felt comfortable. Still, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling almost raw after typing out some of this and pressing publish. At first, I wanted to do an interview between the “younger” and “older” versions of myself, but I think one of the interesting things about ageing is realising we never truly leave our younger selves behind. We carry them and their philosophies with us always and they crop up at the randomest of moments. All this to say that this interview is full of contradictions, and not one speaker embodies one pure emotion or opinion. This interview is as close to the imperfection of my inner monologue as I could possibly get. 

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Chi: So…Happy 22nd Birthday!

Chioma: Ouch.

Chi: Alright…that’s how we’re starting this then.

Chioma: Don’t act surprised. You know more than anyone that I have very complicated feelings surrounding my birthday.

Chi: You get sad.

Chioma: I think saying that I get “sad” is a gross oversimplification of what it is that I actually feel. It’s more a mixture of things. Sadness, yes, but there’s also excitement, pride, fear, a sprinkling of guilt–

Chi: Guilt?

Chioma: For still being around when others aren’t. I guess, it’s a natural reaction to celebrating your birthday on the anniversary of a loved one’s death. I eat cake and think about how bitter my last words to my uncle were in comparison, think about how my childhood friend always had an aversion to jam yet made the effort to scrape it off the Victoria Sponge I’d had for my tenth birthday, just because she wanted so desperately to celebrate with me. With that kind of history surrounding your birthday, guilt is…unavoidable, really.

Chi: They would want you to celebrate, though. They wouldn’t want you to sit and stew in that sadness, in that guilt.

Chioma: I get what you’re trying to say and how you think that that helps, but that doesn’t really do anything to me. Not anymore, anyway. Believe it or not, I don’t make a big deal out of my birthday because I’m actively trying to avoid that.

Chi: Avoid…what?

Chioma: Expectations. Do you remember being younger on Christmas Day, sitting around the tree with the rest of the family and everything’s fine? In fact, you’re enjoying yourself, until it’s your turn to open your presents, and everyone is looking at you, and your mother’s phone has flash on and it’s directed at your face, just waiting to capture your reaction in real time. And then you’re staring down at the wrapping paper dotted with grinning reindeer, getting worried that you’ll tear apart that cartoonish smile only to find a present that you don’t like. And then the worry morphs into a kind of anxiety over the possibility that your wrong reaction to the present and your family’s reaction to your wrong reaction will get immortalised on film.

Chi: That was…a lot.

Chioma: Yeah. Well, that’s how I feel whenever I plan things with other people on my birthday. As I said before, I feel a mixture of things on the 23rd and I never really know which emotion will push itself to the front and when. Best to ride that emotional rollercoaster alone, and then get off to celebrate my birthday on a completely different day. I might do something this weekend but, still, I’ll probably just do some small.

Chi: You’ve already done that! You went on a solo date to see Othello last week and let your little sister drag you down to the cinema to see Avatar last night. 

Chioma: [laughs] Drag is definitely the word for it, but I ended up having a lot of fun. Since her birthday is on the 26th, that was more of an early gift for her than for me, but then again, any time spent with my sister is a gift.

Chi: You’re being awfully nice lately. First you’re nice to her, and now you’re being nice to me [laughs sardonically]. 

Chioma: What? 

Chi: You’re normally unbelievably hard on me on our birthday but I haven’t seen any of that yet. Is it because other people are reading this, absorbing this conversation between us?

Chioma: I’m trying something new this year, that’s all. 

Chi: What would that be? Toxic positivity? 

Chioma: I’m…I’m trying out that thing, you know, positive self-talk. 

Chi: Ah.

Chioma: It’s all about being nicer to yourself. Kinder. Handling yourself with a little more care. 

Chi: I see. And you’ve decided that doing that also means that you should ignore all the mess? 

Chioma: What mess?

Chi: Chioma. Don’t talk to me like I don’t know you. 

Chioma: I’m…It’s not that I’m ignoring the mess, I’m just choosing not to dwell on it. 

Chi: You can’t properly clean up a mess without dwelling on it. “Dwelling on something,” to fasten one’s attention on something, moodily or persistently. I’ve seen the way you clean your bedroom when it gets really bad—the way you don’t even put music on sometimes because your brain narrows down all of its attention, all of its effort to folding and stacking and wiping and sweeping. You’re a dweller, Chioma. You do nothing but dwell. 

Chioma: Well, I just don’t think that’s the healthiest process. 

Chi: Oh, I’m sure it’s not. [laughs] We should definitely see a therapist at some point. 

Chioma: …

Chi: I said, “We should definitely see a therapist at some point.” 

Chioma: What conclusions could they possibly reach that I haven’t already reached by gorging on self-help and psychology books? Honestly? And we both know that I’d just walk into that office and play around with the truth until it’s digestible. And what if I didn’t lie? We all know how the perception of black people (especially black women) in the medical field can lead to wrong diagnoses. Depression, anxiety and all the other things that TikTok tells me that I have probably all show up differently on me, anyway. 

Chi: Sounds like you're making excuses.  

Chioma: Excuses that have merit—

Chi: —are still excuses. As a birthday present for me, just think about giving it a shot. It might help to speak to someone professionally, even if it’s just for the sake of speaking.

Chioma: Aren’t I speaking to you?

Chi: Yes. Constantly. 

Chioma: Well, I think that’s enough…for now, anyway.

Chi: God. You have major control issues. 

Chioma: You think? 

Chi: I know. 

Chioma: I guess one part of me agrees with you but the other part…not so much. If I have control issues, why do I constantly wish someone would just tell me what to do? Like that one quote from Fleabag: “I think I just want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I've been getting it wrong.”

Chi: It’s scary how you have that script memorised. 

Chioma: I’m being serious. I genuinely want someone to tell me when and what to eat, when to get up and brush my teeth, what to wear and how to wear it. Remember how I said there’s an element of fear in my emotional birthday cocktail? That’s because adulthood has given me a bandwidth of freedom and flexibility that I’m terrified of. If I’m in charge of all my decisions, who else is there to blame when I fuck up but my own reflection? 

Chi: Some would say that you want a Dom. 

Chioma: [rolls eyes].

Chi: Seriously…either that or a father figure. 

Chioma: Let’s please keep the psychosexual analysis to a minimum.

Chi: If you insist. We’ll also ignore the fact that, for some reason, you’re wrongly assuming that you’re bound to fuck up.

Chioma: Thanks for ignoring that.

Chi: [rolls eyes] Still, I’m guessing this desire for externally provided stability is at an all time high right now. Not just because of your age, but also because you’re currently on a gap year. Oh, and on the topic of academics…I’m proud of you. 

Chioma: What?

Chi: For graduating. I’m proud of you. [pauses] Why’re you making that face? 

Chioma: Thanks. 

Chi: No…why’re you making that face? You look disgusted. 

Chioma: You’re proud of me for completing the degree my parents wanted me to complete. It’s leaving a bitter taste in my mouth, is all. 

Chi: If you say you didn’t want to study Law, I’ll know you’re lying. 

Chioma: I never said that. I just…Lately, I’ve found myself wondering if I chose the degree because I wanted to or if I chose the degree because my parents wanted me to and, at the time, I wanted to please them. I’m having difficulty detangling the two, I guess.

Chi: I guess we’ll just use this time away from the classroom to explore that. 

Chioma: That’s the plan. I don’t know…I mean we have this septum piercing right now because a part of me strongly feels that it’s the latter, that I unknowingly absorbed my parents expectations through osmosis. That the whole degree was just another phase of the people-pleasing saga that I’m trying so hard to bring to an end. That’s why as soon as I submitted my final exam, I slipped trainers on with my pyjamas and went to the closest piercing shop to get a needle threaded through me. Teen rebellion!

Chi: We were 21 when we got that done. We’re 22 now. 

Chioma: God, don’t remind me. I feel eternally 17. 

Chi: Ah, yes. You wrote a poem about that feeling this morning.

Chioma: And it was god awful. 

Chi: In comparison to what? Knowing you, you formed that opinion because you went out and read a poem on the same topic. 

Chioma: How could I not? 

Chi: You could…close the Google tab.

Chioma: But you can’t be a writer without being a reader. Right? 

Chi: You also can’t be a Creative if you let the pursuit of perfection stop you from even putting pen to paper. If you let perfectionism win, you’re just an individual with a lot of big ideas and an empty Google Doc.

Chioma: Can you blame me, though? Can you blame me for wanting to take the nastiest aspects of my life, shove them into a cast, and mould them into something breath-taking? Something commodifiable? Despite how therapeutic this piece is for me, I’d be lying if I said that while writing this I haven’t found myself backspacing and typing with an audience in mind. What will they feel as they read this? Am I being too vulnerable? Am I not being vulnerable enough? What’s the point of all the suffering if I get nothing from it but a tension migraine and those therapy sessions you want so badly?

Chi: I don’t know…Personal growth? This honestly just sounds like that people-pleaser itch of yours flaring up again. 

Chioma: Ouch. 

Chi: Who is going to tell you the truth if not me?

Chioma: Anyway…Is undocumented “growth” even…real? 

Chi: This isn’t an “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it” scenario. 

Chioma: Isn’t it though? With the rise of social media, literally everything is put online. All you have to do is swipe down someone’s Instagram or LinkedIn four or fives times and then, right there, you’ll see a snapshot of how much their lives have changed in a span of two to three years. Having witnesses to your success is quite literally the point of success.

Chi: The operative word here is “snapshot.” You don’t know what the hell is going on outside of those pictures, boomerangs and videos, and even if you did, what the hell does that have to do with you and your journey? 

Chioma: I used to play my best rugby and netball matches when our team was losing. I don’t know…it was something about seeing someone right in front of me, doing better, that actively made me want to try harder to beat them. If I wanted to label that feeling positively, I’d probably just say I’m naturally competitive. But if I wanted to be honest, well and truly honest, I’d admit that jealousy is one of my biggest fuel sources. I was raised in an African household with family friends, siblings and cousins as age mates, all of them moving through similar phases of life at the same time as me. Sometimes I feel like comparisons and competition is all I know; sometimes I feel like I’m nothing without it. 

Chi: I see. Well…this isn’t an “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it scenario” because, well, someone is around.

Chioma: Who?

Chi: You. Me. Us. And if you must compete with someone, how about trying to compete with your twenty-one year old self instead? The Chioma of last year did so many amazing things–from finally starting this Substack all the way to writing a First Class Dissertation. But there were also things that they didn’t do, things that they were too scared to do, feats that you can conquer in your twenty-second year of life to successfully one-up them.

Chioma: But what if I lose?

Chi: [shrugs] You’ll continue competing anyway but, maybe, twenty-three year old Chioma will have a slightly easier opponent.

Chioma: So, you’re saying the competition…the tournament of life never ends?

Chi: Never. Not until you give up, anyway. But giving up isn’t like you…it’s not like us. So, when these trees fall–which they will, however they may–we’ll listen to them hit the soil together, before collecting the wood and immediately planting new saplings in their place. Okay?

Chioma: Okay…yeah. That sounds like a plan.

Chi: Great! [smiles] Happy birthday, Chioma.

Chioma: Happy birthday, Chi.

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21 year old me with the crooked framed picture of 1 year old me.

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