People come to me. That’s just kinda how it’s been.
Smartphones that won’t connect, something they keep almost buying, somewhere good to drink, problems that don’t quite have a name yet. Someone always seems to have something, and I’m usually the first call. I didn’t decide to become that person. I just showed up, then showed up again, and eventually that’s just who I am to them.
I wonder about that sometimes. How it happened. But here’s the thing. I like it.
Not because it earns me something, or because I need to feel needed. I just like helping people. It makes me happy in a way that’s hard to describe, quiet and easy, like doing something that fits.
I turned 35 recently. Threw a birthday party, invited the people I wanted in the same room. Ninety-five percent of them came through.
I wasn’t counting heads to feel better about myself. But when I looked around and saw them all there, people who made the effort, something settled in me.
People have been saying it for years, actually. “You’re gonna get tired of this eventually.” “It won’t be like this forever, ya know.” Older people, people my age, all saying it the same way. As if they’re trying to prepare me for something that hasn’t happened yet.
Well, maybe they’re right. Maybe there’s a version of me down the road who pulls back, who wants less of this.
But I kept thinking. Why does that version matter more than this one?
Right now is the only now I have. And right now, I’m happy where I am. I like being available. I like being the person people call. I like that ninety-five percent of the people I care about showed up for me, the same way I’ve been showing up for them.
I think people mean well when they say “enjoy it while it lasts.” But there’s something underneath that. Like you’re supposed to start bracing yourself even while you’re still feeling fine?
I don’t wanna do that.
I wanna be here, in this version of things, for as long as it’s true. Just because right now is actually good, and I’d rather not spend it preparing for when it isn’t.
Maybe I’ll read this someday and think I didn’t know what was coming.
But I think that’s okay too.