Tomorrow is My Birthday

Content Warning:  Lots of self-pity ahead....

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For the past several years (since 2009 in fact), I have veered a little toward depression on my birthday.  Feelings of failure have plagued me.  Back in 2009, the downward spiral was begun by the fact that I was on a two-year medical leave from grad school (initiated by a bout of depression, which included a suicide attempts) and though I knew that I would returning that autumn, in that moment, on that birthday, I felt like everything I had wanted in life was simply out of reach and would never be achievable.

This year, it seems, isn't much different.  I don't know if the dead-end, unfulfilling, way-too-easy job I'm working with no prospects for advancement or even lateral movement into a different role with a more interesting set of expectations or if the infertility thing or the fact there's a pandemic raging out my front door and I'm being furloughed from work (which honestly doesn't bother me all that much; it's the fact that my employer has dictated that all furloughed employees who have paid time off available to them are OBLIGATED to use that paid time off to cover their furlough, and I'd take the furlough unpaid because I'm saving that PTO for a vacation, to Budapest, that isn't going to happen this year either, because, you know, there's a pandemic raging outside my front door - and yours, too!).

You know, as I think about, I didn't go through the whole, "Woe is me, I'm a failure, my life has not followed the plans I set at the age of five and I'll never accomplish anything or be good enough" last year.  I actually had a great birthday.  I celebrated at work with friends.  Then, after, I celebrated again at church with other friends.

All of my friends have left my work place.  I've made new friends and I'll be celebrating with them tomorrow, but I miss the folks I celebrated with last year - with a trio of cupcakes that I named after volcanoes.  Three different flavors.  Three different volcanoes.

With work that is not at all taxing and which does not, generally (at least until this morning), spark massive amounts of impotent rage and resentment, I have had a reasonable bit of brain space emptied of anything other than creative ideas.

So, this year, I'm making cupcakes again.  This year, I'm making one flavor of cupcakes.  I'm only sharing with people at work (my often willing culinary guinea pigs) because I won't be anywhere near the people at my church and because the people from church I want to share my cupcakes with are no longer a part of the church I serve as an at-large member of the council.

Social distancing, physical distancing, COVID containment....  Whatever you call it, there will be few opportunities to celebrate much of anything tomorrow.  Not a terrible thing - I don't like big parties and I'd rather celebrate with 47 smaller parties (tea with a friend, lunch with another, cupcakes with colleagues, dinner with hot hot Husband, an accidental encounter with someone I love), but even that is limited this year.

Maybe I did it wrong.  Life.  Maybe I shouldn't have planned.  Maybe I shouldn't have tried to make something of my life.  Maybe I shouldn't have tried to have a meaningful existence.  Maybe....  Maybe I should stop wanting to make a difference, stop wanting to matter.  I'm halfway through my life - maybe more.  And all I have to show for that ridiculous master's degree and the years of therapy is another idea for a cupcake.

So, I cry about the whole no babies thing and I fantasize about quitting my job for ... something more (as if that's even a possibility) ... and I fry sage in butter until the butter is browned and the sage is crispy which I will turn it into cupcakes, with a blackberry cream filling, lime buttercream icing, and blackberry and crispy sage accent on top.  I will take those cupcakes to my new friends who are work colleagues.  And I will ask them to celebrate with me - from at least six feet away - because, after all, tomorrow is my birthday.