Birthdays, And How I Learned To Celebrate In My Own Way

Thirty today, I saw
The trees flare briefly like
The candles on a cake,
As the sun went down the sky,
A momentary flash,
Yet there was time to wish.


~ Donald Justice

On the other site, I read a post today from Kel, one of my favorite bloggers, about how Sept 11th is her kid's birthday, and since 9/11 celebrating hasn't felt the same. A lot of people on her post were saying that you must still celebrate, keep thinking of it as a sacred day, but I'm not sure that you ever can get past a thing like that.

The two weeks around my own birthday are marred with tragedy in our family - personal tragedy, nothing on the scale of 9/11, but tragedy nonetheless. Until this year, I have never had a birthday that was happy. I knew from watching other families that birthdays are supposed to be times of celebration, but I've never known one that didn't involve guilt for existing and a mother who wished she didn't. Even the years that she was fairly stable, and made an effort, I always knew that if the world had gone the way it was meant to then my brother would be here and I would not.

As a kid, I tried to celebrate anyway. We had parties, balloons, jelly cups, played Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Laughed, danced, and hid the fact that ten days from now Mom would be wailing and telling her four-year-old (or six-year-old, or ten-year-old) how much she wished she was dead. And once or twice, in the earliest days, actually attempting it...but I digress.

It's not that I blame her. She tried. And because she knew that she'd never succeed in making my birthday what it should be, we had other times of the year that were really special. Halloween parties where we did all the things that you'd normally do on a birthday, as well as trick-or-treating and carving pumpkins. Christmas Craft Clubs, held every Saturday morning from Thanksgiving until Christmas, where my schoolfriends came over and each week we'd make a different Christmas decoration. (Paper plate Santas and manger scenes and baubles when I was five, stuffed felt stockings to hang on the tree when I was six, cotton sacks decorated with fabric paints and gutta and stuffed with candy or home-made pot pourri when I was seven...) Thanksgiving dinners, Valentines masquerades, Easter egg hunts in the garden or on the beach. Living with a bipolar (even if never truly diagnosed) mother meant that when she wasn't depressed and suicidal, she was on top of the world, rejoicing in the beauty of life and celebrating every possible occasion. And most of the time she was a good mother. A wonderful mother. We did all sorts of things, had all sorts of adventures, that most kids - especially most English kids - never dream of.

So with all that, the birthday thing shouldn't bother me, right?

Wrong.

I think part of the stress was that we always tried. Often trying to enjoy a thing, whether you like it or not, is infinitely more painful than just treating is as though it's nothing. The years I was twelve and thirteen, Mom and her then boyfriend agreed to let me have a huge party in a local hall, with fifty or sixty kids invited from school (and another fifty or sixty who gategrashed, LOL ) and a DJ. Nothing personal, nothing family-oriented, nothing that would mean I needed anything from my mother. That worked well. But by the time I was fourteen, I was missing two thirds of my classes at school, and drifting apart from a lot of my schoolfriends, and throwing a big party when the teachers were demanding to know why I wasn't attending classes seemed like a sham. So I said, no more birthdays. And none of the family accepted that, and the stressful cycle of trying and failing to enjoy ourselves started up again.

Then I started getting sick around or on my birthday. Stomach bugs. Appendicitis. Kidney infections. Pneumonia. Mono. People always asked how I could have such bad luck, but I never wondered. I may work in the medical field, but I also have a lot of respect for the effects of emotional state on the body. For the last couple years I've begged the family and friends to forget my birthday, treat it as just another day. They wouldn't. I explained the illness and the past tragedies politely, several times, to everyone who asked. They ignored me. I explained not-so-politely, and said that I really didn't want to be reminded of things that happened in the past. They persisted in asking me what I wanted to do, and showing up with presents and cards and telling me they were taking me to dinner, and told me what Kel's posters are telling her - that you have to push through the pain, and reclaim the day as your own. I threw a tantrum, scorching the earth with my anger, and asking everyone how they could be so goddamn disrespectful as to ignore my wishes when it's MY day. They told me I was being horrible and unreasonable when they were only trying to help. I bubbled over with rage and resentment for a couple weeks, and eventually shrugged and decided that birthdays are like funerals - they're for the benefit of the guests, not the host.

I gave up. This year I told everyone that they could do as many presents and parties and evenings out as they wanted, on the condition that they did it three months later, on the third of May. They looked at me strangely, and asked me a dozen times if I was sure, but they respected it. We had a lovely BBQ and loads of cards and gifts, and cake, and everyone sang to me. On my actual birthday, I went shopping alone and bought a couple of books and a Beyond Sudoku magazine and some presents for Mom, and everyone left me alone. I didn't get sick. It was a strange compromise, but one that worked.

My profiles online, store cards that give you gifts on your birthday, diaries - all but the most official documents - have my birthday down as May 3rd. I still identify with the Aquarius horoscopes, but for all other intents and purposes I consider myself a May child. February can never be a happy month for me, not after more than a quarter-century of misery. But birthdays can...you just have to think laterally.

Catch A Falling Star And Put It In Your Pocket...

...Save it for a rainy day.


I feel like I should have a buffer of rainy day stars. Or posts. I did write a bunch awhile back, actually, but I seem to have filed them somewhere where I can't find them. Presumably while under the influence of insomnia. Just silly posts, things like lists of my favorite obnoxious T-shirts, and the things I love best about Autumn, and random thoughts that don't have to be tied into Events, either in the world in general or in my life. Things I can post whenever, just to let y'all know that I haven't deserted you.

Yeah, I'm still alive. Just about.

Been a while, hasn't it?

It's not so much that I don't have anything to write about, it's more that I can't quite get my thoughts and feelings out.

I want to tell you about heartbreak and idiot ex-boyfriends who come and seduce you and then afterwards admit to you that they're still with their girlfriend, and they're still not "supposed" to be talking to you. And also of the idiot girls who fall for their shit for the third time unlucky.

I want to tell you about the people who've jacked me around lately, and how mad I am that so many of the people who are supposed to be close to me totally fail to respect the fact that my time is precious - I have little enough of it - and when I get mad because I get stood up five times in six weeks, after frantically rescheduling things because you begged to see me, I'm not angry because we didn't get to have fun after all, I'm angry because the message behind your actions is that you think that YOUR free time is more valuable than MINE.

I want to tell you about how, more and more, I'm finding myself resenting people because they don't have the same value systems that I do. And how much I hate that resentment, because I don't want to be that girl who dislikes people for being different - but at the same time, I can't help being mad when I try so hard to do the right thing, make so many sacrifices for my loved ones, and they don't even bother to try. And it's all so confused and frustrated and I don't know what to think.

I want to tell you about my health, and how things are happening to my body that are scaring the pants off me, and so many of the symptoms that I'm getting are leading to one specific condition - but I don't want to talk about that condition until I'm a little more sure, can't even go and say to my doctor that I think I may have it, because it's a zebra diagnosis and I already have a reputation as being a hypochondriac, and if I say something and it turns out I DON'T have it then none of my doctors will ever take me seriously again. So there's nothing I can do but wait and watch and observe to see if things get worse.

I want to tell you about LOML, and his problems - but I can't do that, because I promised myself that I'd stop writing personal stuff about him in here. And may have to delete what I've written. Even though I've never mentioned his name. Because I know he would hate me talking about it, even while his life and problems affect me enough that I consider it part of my own life stuff.

I want to tell you about how the three men who mean the most to me outside my family have all dropped me like a hot brick this summer, two of them with little to no explanation, and how I feel horribly alone, even when I'm in a room full of people who love me. And how I don't know how to deal with loneliness, because it's not something that's ever really affected me before. Until now I've always thrived on being alone, and had enough inner activity to never feel lonely or bored. And now I don't know how to deal.

I want to tell you about how much I miss Kurisu-San, but God knows I've told you that enough.

I want to tell you about the utter shittiness that is hypoglycemic dysphoric disorder / neuroglycopenia, that has affected me since I was seventeen but has, for some reason, gone out of control this summer, so that when I get low blood sugar my mood takes a downswing that can be anything from mild irritability to black despair to extreme paranoia to suicidal thoughts to crazy rage, that makes me so upset and irrational that I don't realise I'm being irrational, that makes me wonder if I've suddenly had a psychotic break - until I eat something. And then I feel fine. Even though I was diagnosed by a specialist back in Sixth Form, I still feel like I'm going mad when it happens. How can a basically happy, well-adjusted (OK, stressed-out, but that's temporary) person suddenly become irate, paranoid, even suicidal, just because she skipped a meal? I don't know, but it happens. Craziness.

I want to tell you the fun things, too - the wonderfulness that is Ms Babs who I met two weekends ago, and how much I love Autumn, and how Michael at the bank finally sorted out my finances so that I shouldn't be totally screwed for the rest of the year, and might even have some money for college clothes.

But...yeah. I have all those posts in my head, but getting the words down, so that they sound right, is just beyond me right now.

So here. Have a taste of the best thing that happened to me this week.





No, I didn't make it - it's from Dixie's Cupcakery in town. They actually bake a full-sized Oreo into the bottom of the cake itself. Bliss. I should have only eaten half a one, though - I think my teeth are about to fall out. The ones I have left, anyway.

(Written two or three days ago, and somehow I forgot to post. Oops.)

Time And Time Again I've Said That I Don't Care...

...That I'm immune to gloom
That I'm hard through and through
But every time it matters
All my words desert me
So anyone can hurt me
And they do.

~ Evita

The first time I ever got my heart broken, I was fifteen and I was acting and singing in my theater group's version of Evita. Not the whole play - young voices aren't capable of that, or they shouldn't be - but an abridged version. Still a challenge, and I loved it. I lost my love of performing right after that - perhaps because of what was going on in my life at the time, who knows - and it was actually the last time I ever set foot on a stage for anything other than speeches and lectures. But at the time, I loved it. For nine months I threw myself into being a different person. Being someone else got me through the first few months, when Julian's and my relationship started to go bad, and it sure as hell got me through the last couple months, when our life together - and his life, full stop - ended.

Perhaps it is not entirely coincidence, then, that every time that my heart's been bruised or broken in the last twelve years, I've immediately turned to Evita. Some of you have Joni Mitchell, some have Adele, some have Randy Crawford or Nina Simone or Billie Holiday. I have a whole host of Evas - Elaine Paige, Siobhan McCarthy, Elena Roger (not Patti LuPone, though; I'm sure I'll draw a bunch of hisses, but I don't think she was good in the role AT ALL ) - and yes, Madonna. I thought she did it brilliantly, although I accept that a lot of people disagree. The movie version is usually my first stop, since our theater production was more like the movie than like the Broadway / West End play. Plus, it's easy to get hold of.


When Richard brought Kerry home, and the two of them treated me like I wasn't welcome in my own house. When he fucked me and then refused to talk to me for several days. When Curt told me he loved me and then decided he liked my friend better. When Siji dumped me - twice, actually - for his ex. On these occasions, and probably a couple others that I've forgotten about, Buenos Aires in the 1940s is where I immediately head. It provides a sanctuary.


I've worn out my video of it in the last year or so. It's been played a heck of a lot. Time to get a DVD, methinks.

It's funny, though - I spent so many months being Eva, escaping from my own life into the life of another, that even half a lifetime later I can remember what it feels like to become a person who's known what it's like to be betrayed and emotionally bruised, but who also knows that she's better than that, that she's worth more. Sati forgets this sometimes, but Evita remembers what she deserves out of life. OK, sometimes she thinks a little TOO much of herself, but she makes it work for her. The music plays in my head, and I remember what it feels like to have that confidence and self-worth. And I can feel my shoulders straightening, my chin lifting and my head being held a little higher. And if I also feel myself becoming a little harder, a little more cynical...well, those will probably be temporary, and even if they're not it's a small price to pay.