These Birth Months Have An Inner Strength Others Envy

The world is divided between stoics and crybabies, between those who silently suffer and those who make a public performance out of amplifying their petty misfortunes.

Some people could lose everything they own in a house fire and be back on their feet before the smoke clears. Others will file an emotional injury claim over a lukewarm latte.

These 4 birth months are so unshakeably, maddeningly, infuriatingly strong that the weak can’t decide whether to admire them or resent them — so they do both.

November

You are the type of person who could find out, mid-eulogy, that the deceased left you nothing — not a stick of furniture, not a coffee mug, not the courtesy of a mention — and finish the eulogy anyway, warm and generous and not a syllable off. The other beneficiaries, clutching their inheritances like winning lottery tickets, will watch you fold the paper, smooth your skirt, and walk back to your seat, and something in them will curdle. They got everything. You got your dignity. They will never forgive you for which one looks better.

January

Some people treat a broken fingernail like a bereavement. Your coworker, for instance, will reconstruct the incident for anyone who holds still long enough — the sound it made, the jagged edge, the ongoing pain. You, meanwhile, have been going to chemotherapy on your lunch break and haven’t mentioned it to a single person. You schedule it between meetings. You bring a sandwich. When she eventually finds out what you were carrying in silence, something in her will go quiet. Then something in her will go hot. You made her suffering look like a costume, and she will never quite forgive you for it.

May

There are people who spend fifty minutes a week feeding a therapist their most exquisitely crafted suffering, and then there are people who are the therapist — nodding, absorbing, professionally present — while quietly realizing they will be legally blind in a year. You are the type who, when the client across from you performs genuine, heaving grief over a goldfish, does not flinch, does not check the clock, does not once let the irony of the situation register on your face. You have been losing your eyesight by degrees, appointment by appointment, and nobody knows. The goldfish gets the tears. You get the co-pay. And somewhere in the back of their mind, if they ever find out, they will hate you a little for how gracefully you bore it.

February

Your ex showed up at your workplace to announce, with considerable theatrical preparation, that they are completely and totally over you. They have moved on. They are thriving. They want you to know this in person, at your job, in front of your coworkers. You smile, wish them well, and go back to what you were doing. This is the part that breaks them. They practiced the speech. They picked the outfit. They drove across town fueled by the pure rocket fuel of righteous indignation, and you say that you’re happy for them. They will go home and stare at the ceiling for a week. You will not think about it again.