Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Hands… (not) touching hands….

lack of races equals lack of motivation

I had a really bad birthday week.

Like top three worst birthdays.

Considering that birthday #1 was the year my mother died and birthday #2 was the year after my father died, to crack the top three you know shit had to be bad.

A 10K, a half marathon, another 10K, and Rival Run were all cancelled within a few days of each other.

Universal was shut down.

People who should have wished me a happy birthday disappeared.

No special birthday meals.

No birthday cake.

A whole lot of nothing.

And yes, I am perfectly aware that this is a minor issue compared to some people’s lives during our new reality, but… I’m bipolar. This sort of situation will create a very dangerous low. When it swings the other way, it will be a very dangerous high. I purposely make a big deal out of my birthday for a reason. In order to survive, my birthday has to be surrounded by fun and I need to be distracted. Those are the rules. I don’t make them.

So.

Let’s talk about that low.

I had (rather foolishly) thought that all the shit I went through after getting fired was as bad as it could be. As depressed as I could possibly get.

Ooooooooh, how I wish I had remembered Birthday Depression.

Holy fuck, I didn’t think I’d ever see the sunshine again.

As it is, it’s still dark and cloudy as fuck, but there’s light on the horizon.

 

- - - - - - - - - -

My mother and I had a (thankfully) short yet ridiculously complicated relationship.

She died two days before I turned 17. She was 45.

I, myself, just turned 45.

That alone is a huge mind fuck. I know I’m not an alcoholic and that I won’t die from the same thing she did, but… when your time is up, it’s up. My only question is whether or not there’s another ticking time bomb in my DNA. I mean, she already gave me bipolar, and a family with a history or heart disease. (Thank you for the SVT, mom… and possibly, the heart murmur, too.)

It’s been twenty eight years.

Twenty eight years of freedom.

Twenty eight years of wondering if I’m going to die at 45, too.

Twenty eight years of living with the fact that “I gave everything in life, I leave nothing in death…” was published IN A FUCKING BOOK.

Twenty eight years of knowing a double life was lived… and that I got the worst of her.

Twenty eight years of conflicting emotions.

Twenty eight years of not forgiving because I earned the right to hate her.

Twenty eight years of not forgetting what she did to me.

Twenty eight years of starting my day singing “Ding dong, the witch is dead.”

Twenty eight years is a lot of life to miss out on, but she didn’t deserve to be in my life and I’m glad she’s gone.

(Did I say we had a complicated relationship? It was… Complicated.)