When Britney really hit her stride, and they did her wrong.

I celebrated a big birthday a few days ago. I am 40.

This year, a couple of close friends gave me very thoughtful gifts that I was not expecting. I’m uncomfortable with the idea that people want to do nice things for me simply because I am myself with them. It feels counterintuitive. Then I think about what I’ve learned about development and trauma, and I feel sad for the part of me that thinks I only deserve nice things when I am not myself. I’ve been processing a lot of these counterintuitive thoughts lately. True to my nature, my midlife crisis was respectably punctual, running the perfectly polite few minutes early. I’ve been relying on friends heavily over the last year. They make good company because most of them are right next to me on the struggle bus for one reason or another. Being a human is hard and we don’t talk about that nearly enough.

One friend gave me an adorable miniature pottery wheel, along with clay and utensils in a tote bag customized with Paul Rudd’s face.^[1] When I was young, every year around my birthday and Christmas an educational toy catalog was delivered to our house. I don’t remember the name of the company, but I remember they sold a toy pottery wheel. I wanted it so badly. I asked my parents repeatedly for a pottery wheel when I was a kid. I’m not sure if the wheel was too expensive or perhaps my parents didn’t want to deal with the mess of a pottery in their home, but I never received the pottery wheel as a gift and the reason I was given by my mother years later when I asked why not: “You never asked for a pottery wheel.”

This is the kind of response is crazy making. Why on God’s green earth would I lie and say I asked for a pottery wheel that I saw in an educational learning catalog that I did not actually ask for? Did I make the catalog up, or just the toy on the page? Where was I going with the line of questioning? What is there to be gained? But I digress. Now, with three of my own children, I could certainly understand a sanity saving decision to not purchase a mess making machine. Or, perhaps it was too expensive. My family was not swimming in money and the catalogs selling educational toys are more expensive than most. I could understand that, too. But, what my mother told me when I asked about why she’d never gifted me the pottery wheel was that I had never asked for one. Unsaid: You are crazy. You might not think that this is an effective strategy for systematically destroying one’s sense of reality, but over time it really adds up.

So when I received the small pottery wheel from my friend, I was truly touched. She gifted me a tote bag full of sanity. She said I hear you. I’ve heard your story and I want you to live out a dream, even if you have to start small.

[1] He’s on my dance card—you know, the people you are allowed to sleep with free of any marital consequences should the circumstance present itself. Paul Rudd has a slot.