// trying to come to terms with 'my birthday' 'issues'
| 09/09/2003 - 2:39 p.m. |

originally posted in TS @ TF, with Topic Description "...and oh yeah it happens to be "9/11"

so, i doubt any of you remember my whining about it last year, but my birthday is september 11.
in truth, i don�t really feel any like *emotional* connection to the �9/11� events of 2 years ago.
various reasons for that, among them being my general difficulty in making emotional connections to tragedy, death, etc.
i am much more likely to view it intellectually, politically, etc.
and, gratefully, i had no personal ties to anyone or anything that occurred then or has since.
except that very minute piece of random bizarreness that it happened to occur on the day i was turning 24.

but that�s really not the point of this post.
i have always had �issues� with my birthday.
again, many reasons�just two being a few bad father-related memories of ones in childhood and many lonely ones as a teenager.

on my 20th i was a day-patient on an ED unit, not at all feeling like celebrating my �life�, so bent on ignoring the day i made it 10x worse.
my 21st was actually a good one, i was in a vastly different and improved place in my life.
and the next few were relatively decent, though I continued to want to keep it as low-key as possible.
but it was a time of the year where i never failed to find myself in some kind of moody little funk.

in 2001, i was unknowingly only a few months away from my life crashing down around me as suddenly as the WTC, and i guess it just feels to me like its now forever tainted beyond just my personal melodrama.

so no matter how i am doing otherwise, my birthday always looms as this �thing� to be gotten through (and granted i myself give it the power to fuck with me).
and when i�m in a place like i am now, where the idea of celebrating another year of being alive seems utterly absurd considering how often i wish i were dead, well yeah, JUST MAKE IT GO AWAY PLEASE.

BUT, i had an important realization i think a few days ago.

you see, one of the other things that had always bothered me was how regardless of what i wanted, my mom would pretty much ignore me and insist on trying to make a bigger deal out of it than i was comfortable with.
and i would be like, grrrr, it�s not about YOU.

except that, DUH, it IS about HER.
she GAVE BIRTH on that day.
to her first born.
that�s a big fucking deal.
a huge, momentous, life-changing event.
�The best day of my life,� she says.
and the last thing i want is to take that away from her.

so, i realize i�ve been pretty unfair about it all in the past (me, self-absorbed?? ).
AND, it seems like a �solution� of sorts.
take the focus off me, make it more about celebrating MY MOM, who goddess knows deserves some fucking celebration, and maybe it won�t throw me in such wacky loops.
and maybe even, it might give back to me a wee bit of positive meaning to the day.

previously, i really wanted to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to mark the day on thursday.
which clearly would have broken my mother�s heart.
and then i was trying to think of something that we could do that maybe i�ve wanted to but just haven�t but wouldn�t really be birthday-related.
couldn�t really come up with anything.
and i really really didn�t want to celebrate with food/dinner, blah, which is what we always end up doing.

but after having this realization, i�ve come up with a tentative plan that includes both of those things, heheh.
have dinner with mom, my aunt j. (who i�m currently living with), and s. .
i�ve come up with a short list of places i like but haven�t been to yet since i moved back to Ph. and figure i will give my mom the final choice.

theeeennnnn, mwahahahah, s. and i are working on a plan of our own to go OUT-out (like to a particular CLUB, like ME, go out, where there are like PEOPLE??? WEIRD!!!!)�and partake of some recreational substances even (not for s., but for me, even more of a truly insane concept).

so that�s my deal, the long and winding story of m. making a massive deal out of the day she claims she wants to ignore

don�t worry your pretty little heads, you will surely be updated