My husband says this year is "supposed" to be my Golden Birthday but really I'm just hung up with how wonderful of a sound the age and date can be rolling off my tongue.
Honestly if it weren't for this yearly reminder and everyone around me insisting I do the math I would most likely forgotten my age.
Birthdays, I feel often, are for chumps.
But they aren't-- like we all get the opportunity to have a birthday.
I just don't know if I want to celebrate mine anymore.
Maybe it was last year, maybe the year before, I shut down the facebook to tune out all of the obligatory FB birthday posts which seem overwhelming and disingenuous at best.
My favorite messages of birthday greetings are those which have been provided far in advance, even those which are incorrect in the remembrance of dates, because that is truly the best :D
This year, probably because I've worked hard at shutting down all mention, it seems like there is more generated interest in this day-- I feel it is because I push away the attention that I am somehow attracting more.
Last year was fine birthday. Most people forgot- which is fine- and my immediate family gets in touch.
This year I'm feeling pressure, people all of a sudden want to see me, there are gifts involved (which I specifically said I didn't really want the material attention) and although the excitement is low I'm not feeling much sadness or anxiety.
so far
I guess I have the rest of the day for it to catch up with me
I had a really great party I threw when I turned 24, I believe that's the age it was, I planned that murder mystery dinner after having completed my year-long non-profit study and research project (33 pages in 22 hrs straight!) and it was a room full of people I would not otherwise expect and there was revelry. But again, I invited all who attended and it was advertised as an offshoot of my birthday, party.
I have vivid memories of another nearby birthday where we (my mom, my youngest sister, and my girls) had a small party. I baked my cake and frosted it and we topped it with gorgeous fresh tulips.
People always seem to feel bad when they "forget" but I feel like if it was important enough they would put it in their calendar or their phone and file it away as this is the time and the date of my birth. I think that is what my mother-in-law did after husband mentioned it in passing to her after the date.... because she seems very on top of it this year and her thoughtfulness is very sweet.
I guess I don't like birthdays also because for some people it is such a show and display of all of the friends they have and how much everyone cares and loves them, and I don't really feel like I have a circle of people like that who would get together and surround me. Sure I do, but do I want those people (would they even come together?) all at once?
I had another birthday that was like top of the charts good, life was good, I was head over heels in love, freshly engaged, that was the morning of the first positive pregnancy test AND WE WERE ELATED! OVERJOYED! HOLY COW WE DIDN'T THINK IT WOULD HAPPEN THAT FAST!
And the day involved a sunset and a concert and amazing dinner at my favorite place. A thoughtful card and always ever brimming excitement about the tiny wonder that was growing within.
I miscarried and bled out three days later. That is the truth about chemical pregnancies is that they happen, that is why one should never test "early" because of the possibilities of occurrence of this kind of event- and it was also the first occurrence of many more I would come to experience. Blood type issues and fertilized eggs that triggered my attack system. And then I broke my immune system.
Birthday gifts from God
My insurance company sent me a birthday card last week. I got not only ONE but TWO free scoops from Mitchell's Ice Cream (I apparently am in their database with both my current and previous identities :D )
My plans for today are simple. I am looking for the least amount of stress and the ability to free float through my day. I have probably four more family members that I am anticipating messages from and then the communications should be finished. I am not the type who gets a ton of messages and texts from all my old friends blowing up my phone because I'm worth remembering. I'm from the generation that relies on Facebook and that's about that. I am going to yoga this morning 1. because it is good practice to be in the habit of going regularly and I am very bad about working that into my schedule 2. because my muscles are all jacked up on my left side still and this week they've been achy esp since I got glutened the other day 3. because yoga makes everything feel good and that's where I want to be.
I spent time yesterday and the night before trying to communicate with an old best friend who is grieving the loss of her father. She was earnest, it seemed, in her want to reconnect and talk about things but she is very sad, I understand, and our plans were never meant to be. The last thing I did was invite her to yoga this morning with me. She never responded, from 2:30pm yesterday, so I'm taking it as a non-bite, and part of me wanted to remind her that it was my birthday, that she should come out and it will help her to feel better and I understand her sadness but spend the morning with me old friend. But to say anything of the sort creates an undue pressure.
and since when it is polite to strong-arm your friends and family into spending time with you if they don't really want to but you call up the summoning force of YOUR BIRTHDAY and all of a sudden the world is supposed to scramble to make you feel more important than you are every other day
no thanks
NOT MY STYLE
NOT FOR ME
I would like a simple day spent with my children and my husband. If I have cake it will have to be gluten free (and healthy cake please bc do you know what all that sugar does to our bodies?) and the ice cream I ingest will have to be vegan ice cream (not the most popular flavor at any birthday party) and I tossed around the idea of everyone getting together for lunch (probably a first) but then the hassle of their time spent and their anxieties of communication and I just don't want it. I don't want to be surrounded by everyone who will find more reason to talk to each other than ever anything about me and i don't want it. I'm not getting a video collage of all of everyone's favorite pictures, I'm not getting a public shout out from anyone online (and good riddance I think these types of displays are gross and braggy) and there's a lot I don't want and I'm not going to get. AND THAT'S FINE.
My husband entertained me with his dream of a 'grand scheme' that basically involved hiding clues all over town at meaningful places but the practicality of such a thing is not appealing to me. The idea though was very sweet but I am highly doubtful it would ever have become a reality.
My best gift would be that of productivity I suppose, I will clean my room and make large tackle on laundry mountain and assemble my yard that much more. Disassemble the old chicken coop I DON"T KNOW.
It doesn't really matter anyhow and this is all just a ruse of modern times I'm sure.
I wish birthdays would go away and no one bothered to ask me my age and my birthdate didn't matter because it doesn't really say much anyhow and anyone could use that information to figure out intimate details of my astrologically predicted personality but no one does and no one knows anything and that's ok.
I wish that I could just be simple and feel good about anything ever, but whenever it comes down to me, I just can't. I would rather wish my birthday away. I don't want small material trinkets as gifts from my relatives whom I barely see. Thoughtful in a way but not really, just more stuff for me to manage in my collection of clutter in my tiny house with too much stuff that is all apparently stuff I need but I'm always here alone within it and that's fine with me I just don't want more randomness to have to sort through and that is what every gift I get feels like.
I've been blessed so abundantly anyhow with tons of STUFF that keeps appearing in my life- no matter how much I sort it out and clean up and organize and donate the stuff keeps arriving at my house in bags that I have to sort through.
I will make that my resolve for the morning is to clear out that clutter and find appreciation for the thoughtfulness of my grandmother to even bother to think of me and mine while she was going through her massive downsizing.
Today will just be however it will be
A part of me thinks even I wasn't even going to choose this day to be born, from the sounds of my birth story I didn't want to be born. I was a failed induction attempt past my due date and then a subsequent C-section and I almost aspirated on meconium from the stress of the whole situation. I aint even queen of shit but I was born stressed out and full of it already. Lovely predictor for an accurate life.
and if I wish away today then it slips away, always a lost opportunity to just grasp it and MAKE IT HAPPY
but I can't. no one can. i have too much feeling memory and nothing really feels good on this day to me anymore
I just want to be left alone and ignored like I am everyday
i don't want today to stand out
so i can feel that gaping feel
of something i seem to be without
i am not strong enough in this regard
to lightly brush it off
i don't even know what it is
i just wish it would stop
birthdays are only fun when you're a kid or if you're a big kid and you have friends who love you and know how to plan and have fun
i don't have any of the above
i'm going to keep cycling downwards in this spiral habit i have
so this blog is done
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