So yesterday was my birthday. A day when I usually take stock of the previous year and spend some time thinking about what next year can hold. I was doing OK with that process despite the fact that tomorrow I am being let go again. Actually, was doing more than OK. I was smiling and genuinely happy. Tuesday I spent jump starting the celebration with my mom and her peeps in memory care who sang the loveliest rendition of Happy Birthday I have ever received. Everything aligned beautifully and I felt radiant.
That feeling transitioned into my actual BD and I felt happy. Until about 3PM when I got a phone call from my mom blaming me for her lockdown in memory care, telling me what a hateful daughter I was, alternately begging and threatening to walk home. She continued on with how I was selfish and had done this to her to make my life easier. On and on it went for 45 minutes. People will ask why I let it go on that long. The answer is simple. I always believe that I can turn these conversations around or at least settle her into a more calm mode. Call me delusional. But, it does sometimes work - a fine example of variant interval positive reinforcement operant conditioning.
Funny how that one phone call was the pin that popped the BD balloon. I tried not to be angry at her, after all she didn't remember that it was my BD or even care when I reminded her. Her disease is not her fault. But I was angry. Livid that she had managed to spoil yet another BD. More than angry I was deeply hurt by her words, more so than any other time she has said these things to me, and over the last year she has said them a lot. More like shouted them.
I went home ate some sugar, knowing it would make me crash after, which it did. I laid down took a sweet afternoon nap. But I felt no better when I woke up prowly and restless like a cat. I needed something, I just didn't know what it was. (Don't look for the a-ha revelation because there isn't one. I still have no idea what I was needing in that moment).
Fast forward 24 hours....
Today I feel mostly happy again. Just a few dregs of that angry hurt phone call remain. I am not angry or hurt toward my mom anymore. Just a tiny bit angry and hurt at no one in particular. Trying not to turn that inward or eat it like I have in the past. Trying not to lash out at random passerbys to rid myself of it.
So why did I post such a downer - I dunno for the same reason I like imperfect, funny and ridiculous FB profile pix. I am not perfect and refuse to glam it up so that people think I am. Fuck it. This is me. One day post BD. And this is what being 53 looks like today.
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