The Birthday Thing: Redux

So…everyone lost their damn minds.

Not even a full week of having it up and I ended up with a ten-thousand-dollar birthday present.

That is not a typo.

As I said on Bsky:

Me, 6 days ago: Well, $500 for the junk guys would be great. 😬

Krista: Just put a bunch of stuff on there, like what would really help.

Me, under duress: Okay, I’ll go wild and say $1000. 🤷‍♀️

My friends: lol how about $10 000.

Me, now:

There’s just enough now to basically cover the processing fees, and $100 of it was an offline donation I added. It’s staying up because, well, my birthday isn’t for another week, and who knows. But this is really incredible and unexpected. I’m committing 25% of the budget (or under) to a new high quality laptop that can handle the graphics work I do and will last for a good long while, but that did take some adjusting to and I had a panic attack originally at the thought so of course I’m watching for sales. Still continuing with the plan and little by little chipping away at some vet visits. Next weekend I’m going to do a thorough cleaning and get stuff ready to call the junk guys, then later this fall I can get a new bed finally.

This year has been so bad with a lot of things. Big expenses I have not been able to get enough saved for. Getting my feet under me has seemed impossible and often I could not see a way out (and if you’re reading this That Way–yes, that’s how bad it’s been, particularly April for two weeks but a few times since as well). So fucking five figures of gift–therefore non-taxable!–money is a lifeline, and I’m very cognizant of how it’s finite so I will be hoarding as much as possible for as long as possible.

I did agree to a few terms, however, and bought a) a Ken doll (the one whose job is beach) to go on my desk with Barbie (it was $22 on sale!), b) Babybels for Shawn (which were NOT on sale) as well as a few bougie groceries for me like avocado and mini burrata balls (okay all that was on sale), and c) preorder of the Silent Hill 2 remake DELUXE edition.

Catie Murphy has another joke goal of $12.5K and Dina wants $15K. I am good with this already, although of course I would not object to being able to buy an new iPad and Apple Pencil for work.

My favourite thing, though, was when it hit that $10 000 round number Thursday night, I immediately got messages and texts screaming “$10 000!” from multiple people who had clearly been refreshing, and tons of @s on Bsky from people screaming “WE DID IT.”

It’s the “we” part. That’s the thing. I love that so many people were so invested in this and cheering and excited to do a nice thing for me. I did nothing here but sit on my ass after being bullied into making the thing and tell everyone they’re all clearly stoned–the “we” here is you guys.

Is it disconcerting? Yes. Do I maintain I did this under duress? Absolutely. Have I mentally adjusted to this amount of money, which is like 3x more than I’ve ever had at once in my entire life? No. (I opened a separate account to put it in so it wouldn’t freak me out.)

But I’m ever so grateful not just for the cash (omg I love cash) but also everyone who chipped in whether they knew me or not and the ladies who were out there literally shaking trees and just excited to get to do something nice. This means a lot. Like has an incredible impact on just my quality of life at home and the mental weight of worry I carry all the time. If you don’t live, or haven’t lived, on poverty-level income for a long time, you might not fully appreciate this (I both hope you can understand and also would not wish this on anyone).

Anyway, I’ve been working all day and have to go back to more freelance stuff, and working tomorrow so I can get as much done by and off my plate by Wednesday as possible, so I can take a few days to clean. No rest for the wicked–even the lucky kind.