Celebrate Yourself?

Do you keep yourself tucked out of sight, waiting around for other people to mark the big moments of your life? And they never quite do. Maybe you skipped your own graduation because all that pomp and circumstance felt like an imposition, and you figured you were sparing everyone the trouble of showing up. I earned my Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. I couldn't tell you what my academic colors are, because I wasn't there. By the time I finished I'd already left campus, and it seemed wrong to drag everybody back for a ceremony.

Two people came to our wedding: the witnesses. I'm not sure I've ever marked an anniversary with a real night out. There's a part of me that wonders whether tooting your own horn is somehow shameful. Last November I turned 70. I bought my own cake. My friends knew what the occasion was, but my family had no idea it was anything more than a regular birthday. (It's been almost a year now, so either I've made peace with 70 or I've stopped noticing it.) Plenty of things I accomplished in college passed without my family present, since the trip was too far, though my mother did make it for graduation. When my son and my son-in-law finished the training academy, though, we were there.

Here's what I keep circling back to: if you won't celebrate yourself, don't count on anyone else doing it for you. Decide you aren't worth the fuss and others will quietly agree. The way you treat yourself leaks out in a hundred small signals, and people read those signals and match them. I can hold my ground at work when I know I'm right and it's my job to do the right thing. That steadiness doesn't always follow me home. Lately even the grandkids have started testing whether I mean what I say. I'm holding the line anyway, partly for their sake.

Taped to the inside of my medicine cabinet, out of anyone's view, is a list of compliments I'd like to receive someday. Not posted where a soul could find it. Who taught us to shrink ourselves this way? Whatever the opposite of a narcissist is, that's probably me. Plant your feet and speak up for the things you believe in, yourself included. At home, at family gatherings, I tend to swallow my opinions, so the people closest to me rarely learn what I actually think. The reason is simple enough: I'm afraid of embarrassing myself, or them. Keep your mouth shut. You've heard that one.

A lot of self-help advice tells you to surround yourself only with supportive people so your self-esteem stays propped up. The trap is that a circle of folks who always agree with you can keep you comfortably in denial. Is there some middle ground? Are you the one lying to yourself, or are other people genuinely working to take you down?