I don’t love my birthday. It comes at a weird point in the summer for someone who goes back to work in the fall, a time when it’s too early to really feel ready to shift seasons but too late to feel like I’m still luxuriating in summer. It feels even stranger this year, because we’re creeping up on the anniversary of my mom’s diagnosis. Last year, the kids and I celebrated her birthday with her in Brighton, and that might have been the last real normal family celebration we had.
The kids made me cards (I will frame Abbey’s, filled with beautifully colored drawings) and Ryan found one that’s seriously perfect for us, even though he doesn’t love cards. He, Abbey, and I went to see Barbie while Dylan was in karate, which was probably the right choice for him. We had a fun dinner together, fake playing pub trivia and eating one of my favorite pizzas.
It still felt uncomfortable, and I feel unsettled and uncomfortable today. I ran this morning and did laundry and got most of my to-do list done. I shouldn’t feel like this, but I do. I’m not sure why contentment feels out of reach lately. I wanted to use this summer to re-set from a truly impossible year, with the knowledge that another, even more impossible year will come at some point. No matter how well Mom is doing right now, at some point, all of the chemo in the world won’t be enough to stop the cancer from spreading.
Maybe that’s why I’m having a hard time with my birthday wishes this year, even harder than normal. I’m not sure what to wish for anymore, since time only moves forward, and the past, when things were a little easier, can’t be tread upon again.
I wasn’t sure I wanted a cake this year, with wishes clogged behind fear and complete ridiculousness. We got one today instead, and I still have a couple of hours before finalizing my wishes for the upcoming year. If nothing else, I hope I feel a little more grounded when I wake up tomorrow morning, during the second day of my forty-sixth year.
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