As I age the celebration of the actual birthday seems to loose importance. Now that my father is not here to celebrate and my mother almost joined him it just doesn't seem to hold the energy of celebration. Perhaps it's age, perhaps it's grief, perhaps it's the feeling of loneliness that has been grabbing me lately. But I don't feel much like celebrating and it's not just my birthday it's most holidays. They come with a feeling of resentment, bitterness. I look out and see families smiling and laughing. And inside I'm torn up wishing I could celebrate with my father one last time. I remember, but in many ways the memories feel like they are fading into the abyss. Like with it I am fading. People seem to so engaged in their own lives I'm merely a back drop. And yet I know that some how there is fun to be had in this world, it's not all work. And yet I feel so disconnected. I feel as though people call me friend, but fail to treat me as such. Is it so hard to invite me to something, extend a hand, or a phone call? And that is where I sit at the end of each day the shame that I am actually alone. Most days it's okay. I realize the universe is calling me to move on, meet new people, create my own community, my own family. To stop leaning on people who do not have the capacity to see me, be with me in the way I crave. And it spirals back to my birthday. It comes down to that I am not like others, it is not a celebration for me since my father died. I have shame on this fact when I look around at all the people celebrating in a various ways. And I've come to this conclusion that indeed I want to wake up early and go to the beach. Turn my phone off for the majority of the day. Remove myself from facebook and sit and listen to the messages in the internal silence. Listen to the messages of a another year older. Allow it to be absolutely okay to in fact not celebrate, perhaps I'll never want to celebrate. Perhaps next year I'll allow it to pass me by. But in the end that is my choice.
I had an experience with a friend last year who got mad at me for not returning her text on Thanksgiving. You know what I'm turning inside and seeing that true friends honor that need. What I'm beginning to realize unfortunately many people in my life don't know how to respond to death. How to be with death and how to support someone who has experienced death and is having a part of their self die. And people have stepped away for various reason but what I have learned is that I must listen to the wisdom inside. If I want to turn off my phone, my email, facebook, and choose to not respond that is okay. This is the year I want to do everything differently.
I want to use these days as places to accept more of myself, to listen to the darkness, and to honor the grief that is still very present for me. And to not try to lean on others instead lean on myself. If I want to turn my phone off I can. If I don't want to celebrate the holiday, I don't have to. And most of all if I don't want to be with family, I truly don't need to be. It's time that I honor these days for me and no one else.
