Why would anyone want to celebrate another year of me?

I sit here nearing the end of October and simply overwhelmed with grief at all that I’ve missed this autumn, nearly every autumn. No leaves, no haunted house, no giant rubber duck picture, no brisk walks at dusk. I missed most of the film festival and all of the animal Halloween costume contests. Laura has a thing so I’ll do trick or treat by myself. Since opening and closing the door to strangers all night isn’t fun, I’ll probably stop early and just feel bad the rest of the night.

I lost it all to depression and anxiety, a really rough bout that caught my whole team off guard (by team I mean me, my treatment providers and my support folks.) Using terms like “team” makes it feel less lonely. But depression and anxiety are excellent at isolating people. Really, it’s like being trapped in a room where you can see the people and hear the people and sometimes they wave to you, but they can’t hear what you are actually saying when you wave back so off they go. So eventually you stop looking out the window and they stop waving.

So now it’s my birthday. Birthdays are tricky so I tried to keep my expectations low. Then I had a bad cold, learned the cat has a tumor that requires $2k surgery soon, our furnace died and I’ve realized its time to put the dog to sleep.

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Another year of me? This is where people talk about the things that I do, not the person that I am. Wanting to celebrate productivity is not the same thing as celebrating the producer.

I was so upset by the dog realization on top of the furnace issue that I forgot we are out of coffee and creamer. So seriously my birthday tomorrow is going to suck. I have to stay home while the space heaters run to keep the elderly animals warm – so do I run out for 10 minutes that becomes 30 and leave them alone, knowing they are possibly dying or just drink something else? This is something I should worry about on my birthday?

I guess so. Because sometimes the only way to survive a birthday is make it just another day where I’m thinking about groceries, morning coffee and household stuff. And how soon I can go to bed.