OMG CONGRATULATIONS!
Hey! Welcome to this bit! Outstanding choice you’ve made, by the way, to find yourself here. Well done. Profoundly excellent happenstance for which you should be roundly celebrated. Nope, don’t argue. Stop it, shoosh, I know you have much to get back to. Many emergencies are… emergencing. I see that. But for one small moment, you need to follow me, because this? This is The Congratuatorium.
Public Service Announcement: congratulations to you.
Now, you might not have had a particularly purple patch, recently, with things we like to highlight as congratulations-worthy, but here at the Congratulatorium, we take a very broad view. Existence alone is grounds for a hearty standing ovation. History, biology, bad luck, and the grand scale of the universe have operated in such a way as to assemble the odds in favour of your existence. What a coup. You could have almost never. Does this mean you are obliged to do anything at all? It does not! You are perhaps a world-champion relaxer. You are maybe the kind of person who drifts, forlorn and uncertain and concerned that you’re not doing enough. But look how much you’ve done. You’ve exast. Good heavens. I’m tired just thinking about it.
Did you remember something you went upstairs for? Many of us lack the capacity to do anything quite so miraculous. If I remembered something I went upstairs to the very first time, my friends and family would take to the streets launching a ticker tape parade in my honour. Congratulations.
Congratulations to the organisers. You’re exhausted, you’re accused of all kinds of things from being bossy to having cleaned up something incorrectly so that a messy person couldn’t put their finger on it. It’s a thankless disposition, but it’s a crucial one. Without you, the place would fall apart, and we know you and you should know it and congratulations.
Congratulations to the listeners. People who listen to instructions? Who are you and how can you teach me your ways. But congratulations, on behalf of all of us whose minds cloud over with drifty nothingness whenever instructions are so much as announced. To the friends who are wonderful listeners and don’t project their own opinions or offer unhelpful suggestions: congratulations. You will be remembered for this. This is the kind of skill that really makes a person stand out.
Congratulations on your tidy kitchen table. If you don’t have a tidy kitchen table: congratulations on your important work in leaving amusing messages for your friends. Voicemails, texts, emails. Hilarious. Day-makers. Those friends are lucky and they know it.
Huge congrats for your success negotiating that family thing. Whether it’s lunch venues or helping pack the house up because Auntie Brenda can’t take too much at the moment what with the leg and the relocation to Queensland or whether it’s finally saying no: congratulations. You must sit in that moment and reflect on how it has served the people it needed to serve and how you did that. Well done you.
Congrats to the beloved. You know who you are. The dog loves you best. The grandkid runs super hard at you in the park and you feel it rise up in your chest. You try not to be smug about it but you know. Congratulations.
Congrats to the people who persevere. Some of us don’t. Persevering can be thankless or boring or hard or all of these things. Sometimes it leads to glory, like when my mate taught herself to make quilts and now she just MAKES QUILTS like that’s a perfectly normal thing to have in your arsenal. But sometimes it leads to hard work and not much else. Either way? Congratulations.
Maybe you saw the way someone else saw your behaviour and you changed it. Maybe you realised you’d been making excuses for something that wasn’t quite the way you’d really want to behave. Congratulations for realising, and for thinking about it, and may it open up things for you in ways that bring joy or connection or love or cookies.
Congratulations on reading this column. You weren’t even sure you were going to and look! You did it! Do you know how rare that is? Reading! Like it’s perfectly normal! Like allowing someone else’s words to guide your mind through this otherwise wordless bit!
And yes, the bills may still be unpaid and the boss may be losing their mind, but look at you! Reading! Thinking! Imagining! Reading the end of the page! Congratulations. You’re really beating the odds out there. Keep going.