I had a lovely birthday, thank you. I am now 64. There’s no more “when I’m.”  My friend and college roommate, The Very Miss Mary-Ellis Lacey who is actually now a Mrs. Adams, sent me a birthday card just before she and her husband left on a Rhenish cruise. (Yeah, look that one up.) Mary-Ellis said she hoped there would be a blog post awaiting her return. This is my receipt of that birthday card.

The morning of my birthday I sat in the garden on my chaise lounge amidst the hummingbirds, finches and crows, and one cat, and received visits and flowers and cards.  I was just out there to read the paper but still they came. One at a time, the way I like it.

Late morning Mai took me for brunch at Swanson’s Nursery. If you can avoid spending all your money as you thread through the plants, their lovely café, Barn and Field, has a superb menu.

We were sitting with our frittata (me) and our Portobello sandwich (Mai) when I had an urgent need of the waitperson who had stopped at the next table. I can’t remember what I wanted from her; that’s been eclipsed by my ensuing gauche and disgraceful performance. I wildly waved my hand at her and she easily resolved whatever I was about to erupt over.

I looked at Mai, quietly eating her Portobello sandwich, and was visited with a horrifying awareness of myself. Next to Mai, quiet, slight, soft-spoken and shy, Mai who I have known for 35 years, I suddenly felt like a kangaroo next to a turtle—the small pet kind, not the large snapping kind. Or a Great Drooling Pyrenees next to a middle-aged cat.

“Mai, am I a loud, bossy American?”

I watched her face, reserved and a bit sad. I watched her Chinese-ness struggle against 35 years of, well, me. I’ve never known her to say anything even remotely unkind.

“Yes,” she finally said, apologetically

“Does it embarrass you?”

She went all Chinese again but finally said, “It depends.”

It was a funny, touching little exchange. I could see her point of view and I felt loved. Still it had darker echoes of an exchange I once witnessed between my mother and one of her church friends.

“Am I abrasive?” my mother shrieked incredulously.

“Well, Mary you do come on strong at times,” the mild mannered Lois said.

There are days I console myself with knowing that no one currently in my life had enough exposure to my mother when she was alive, to accuse me of resembling her. But the exchange with Mai got me thinking about a cleavage within my personality that has unsettled me all my life (and did I mention I am 64?)

I am, at heart, an introvert: quiet, reflective, sensitive. I can spend not just hours, but days alone. When I was younger, I forced myself to be social every few day, treating the occasion like bad-tasting medicine necessary to basic health—kind of like exercise.

On those occasions, unless it was a small, safe group, I over-compensated. I became the life-of-the-party, spotlight whore, stage monster Great Drooling Pyrenees. Or so I felt as I cringed with shame on the way home. It was as though I had some crazy relative living inside me who I let run amok a few hours a week so she could get all the wiggles and shouts out of her and maybe pee in public for good measure.

I didn’t understand how uncomfortable I was maneuvering a crush of noise, people and social expectations. Nowadays I recognize that my ability to be among humans caps at about three hours a day, less if it’s a large noisy situation. Then I need 21 to recover.

A few years ago I forced myself to attend a friend’s Christmas party because throwing a large holiday party is her beloved tradition. The Christmas season can be a nightmare for me. I like the lights, the music, the gifts and food but there is such a glut of it that I want to cower at the base of the front door and not open it from Thanksgiving til after New Years. After all the choral rehearsals, concerts and holidays craft sales, the last thing I want to do is party. (I actually never want to party within the usual meaning of the act.)

Anyway I walked into this party a little late, indicative of how much I didn’t want to be there as I am usually constitutionally incapable of being late, ask anyone who knows me. The house was packed with brightly dressed people who had already gone through the buffet line and were sitting on sofas and chairs, chatting animatedly, smiling, laughing, squealing. Guests milled and pooled at the food table. Wine flowed. Jewelry glinted and gleamed in the lights. Music blared above the chatter.

I hung up my coat. I looked bleakly at the festivities. I was tired. I had just finished the teaching quarter, four choir performances and two weekends of art and craft sales. I circled around the house smiling insincerely, saying hello to a few people until I found my friend, the hostess, in the kitchen where the gleam of her earrings ricocheted off the toaster. I gave her a hug and said what a great party it was. Then I quietly threaded my way back to the hall, got my coat, drove home and got in my jammies. I had been there for all of 90 seconds.

That was the night I decided I wouldn’t even go through the motions next time. I can do what I want when I want. I’m 64.