Okay, this blog post may get a little personal, and not in a dirty way. Yesh, get your minds out of the gutter. Before I begin, I ask only one thing of all of you readers...please don't comment with tons of sympathetic words. The thoughts are appreciated, but that is not why I am writing this post. I think I am writing it for 2 reasons. Reason 1) I need to be a little more open, as Eilfie mentioned and reason 2) to show myself just how far I have come. Here I go...
Tomorrow is my birthday. Usually this occasion bring happiness to people, but not for me, at least not for the last 6 years. For the last 6 years, I have done my best to hide my birthday from anyone and everyone I could. When I started my new job, I didn't tell anyone when my birthday was, and skirted around the question whenever it came up. My boss, who is really big on birthdays, respected the fact that I don't celebrate my birthday when I explained why.
6 years ago I lost my mother, a topic that I am really not ready to discuss fully yet. This is a process people, and I am not quite there yet. My mother was a big celebrator of events. She loved them all. At Halloween, she would buy oodles (yes I did just use that word) of candy for the neighbourhood kids, of which we had 7. At Easter, she would hide eggs and leave chocolate bunnies everywhere just so we could find them. She was a big Christmas fan too. She would start shopping in July so that the tree overflowed with gifts. She realized that the things weren't important, she just liked giving and the fun of the holidays. She did attend church and understood the true meaning of these times, but she had fun too. Her favourite holiday of all...birthdays.
My mother always made birthday's special. When I started high school, she would get a little desert cake, or a donut or something, just for us to share in the morning when no one else was around. My mother and I went through some rough times when I was in high school and I believe this was her way of acknowledging that I was growing up and her way of telling me she was happy I was born, at least that was the way I saw it. I loved this little ritual, because I saw it as someone saying they were happy I was here, that in some way I made their life better.
When my mother passed, the thought of celebrating my birthday was something I couldn't consider. The thought alone, made me ache internally and almost brought me to tears. When my friends would corner me into it, I agreed that we would go to dinner and that would be it. Nothing else. This is how it has been for the last 6 years. One friend, my roommate, takes me out somewhere to do something fun, like a concert, but that was only because she wouldn't let me ignore the day. Now it is something I look forward to, almost the way that I used to look forward to that special time with my mom.
I write all this because this year, for some reason, I am excited for my birthday. It doesn't hurt so much to think of celebrating it. I've come to realize that doing so isn't turning my back on the the ritual I had with my mom that meant so much to me, it's just a way for me to let a few other people say "I'm glad you were born." In a way, it feels like I've taken another step towards being who I want to be and allowing myself to be a little more open to people and my environment. Yet another step in growing up.
So, tomorrow I turn 32. I will sneak a little snack cake and be glad I was born.
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