MARCH 28, 2020

MARCH 28, 2020

Today would have been my father's 70th birthday. I'm not sure what that means. Well, I kind of do. Since I was in my late teens and going through, well, when he passed away in 2014, the man would always take some elaborate vacation for about two weeks or so off to lands all over the place. European trips, trips to Mexico. Trips through the American heartland and East Coast. Fishing trips with "friends", which I never really thought he had friends. I mean, I later come to realize that those friends were his other life in terms of a mistress and then a mistress to a mistress.

The man was complicated. The point being, the dude wouldn't show the fuck back up into my world until the second weekend of April. Which was pretty convenient for the sake that my birthday is the first week of April. So growing up there was always a sort of  "Oh, we'll be gone for your birthday" mentality to it all. I mean, if I was a bit smarter I would probably have thrown a party at home. But by the time these stuff was happening, I wasn't really of that age anymore. More to the point, I was a fucking nerd. Who the fuck needs to throw a party?

I think one year I just had a couple of friends come over and have a LAN party. Oh man, some crazy shit happening there playing DOOM and Quake. Yuuup. Don't call the cops!  Anyhow, I got shit from that one because the neighbors said that there was more cars parked on the street.

The point being that my parents were typically gone for that time and the constant, and I mean constant by-line through it all in the years was  "Well, we'll do something when we get back for your birthday"  or  "We'll go out and get something to eat to celebrate your birthday"

Spoiler alert.  That actually never happened. For years my owed birthday outings were just forgotten through time. I really grew numb to it over the years. By the time they got back, they just sort of had to get on with life and it's always been a bit of a sore subject. Mainly because it basically just a constant reminder that I wasn't really top on that priority list.

And I guess I sound like a whiny little bitch right now. I'm not. I learned over the years to do shit on my own for my birthday. I didn't need someone else to praise me for surviving another year around this spinning earth. Some years were bad. Some years were okay. I sure know I fucking carried that sort of nonsense through so many relationships. Then again, that had something to do with the fact that I was told I was difficult to shop for. Which I honestly don't know how that is possible since I really don't ask for anything material more than just experiences and memories of the celebration. And I do have a bit of a downer attitude around the time, but I think it has a huge amount of issues with the whole hurt I have dealt with in the past more than anything.

I'm just vocalizing this. Or writing it out. I'm sure looking back at past post about this in this blog would show similar. I'm not much of a fan of a my birthday. Which, I guess means that this year isn't something I'm set up to properly handle in two weeks, which seems like why I'm writing this.

I'm turning 40. I was a complete piece of shit when I turned 30. I thought I was way over the hill, feeling like my accomplishments weren't all that great and well, not having much of a clue where I was heading in all that sort of direction. Ha. If I could see my 30's self again. I feel like a majority of it was wasted in a relationship where I didn't matter, in hindsight.

Originally I had planned for this birthday to be pretty amazing. I had a full week of fun activities that I had planned and lined up perfectly like a Lunar eclipse. Now my plans have completely been flushed down the drain and much like a lunar eclipse, it's not blocked by bigger things like a pandemic. I was going to go to Vegas for Viva Las Vegas, which is postponed till next year. I had tickets to a Transformers cover band. I had tiki plans and Wonder Con was that very weekend. Suffice to say, the whole week was going to be pretty packed and pretty amazing. Right now it's looking like.... that's not going to be anywhere near that. 

I'll be in isolation socially distancing, so I don't even know if I'll even see anyone. Which just seems rough on its own. I... well,  I'm not dead.  Shit, did I just jinx myself? Well, I'm not dead yet as of this writing, so I guess that's something to go on. But a lot of what I had hoped would be "my year".... yeah, that shit went out the window. I'm sort of laughing right now because otherwise I'd be in tears.

I just generally hate the "we'll do something later" mentality when it comes to my birthday because it's a huge triggering word. I explained above why. I just don't have faith in it anymore and when it's told to me... then, well, it just gives me flash backs and I don't know how to process it. A lot of bad memories and a lot of reinforced negatively with that. Yes, it's a nice thought.... but my day has come and gone plenty of times and I just don't want to hear it. If it's forgotten, then at least it's forgotten. But to be something that... well, is postponed or kicked down the road.  That hurts more than I'd care to express.

And I'll be 40.  This isn't the worse. I've embraced my age for a bit now after my long term relationship has fizzled. I thought this year would be the year that I kicked things off to high gear in terms of traveling. And honestly, I guess that still can very much happen later in the year with the insanely low rates that are happening with the airlines, but man, this pandemic is getting scary and I feel like a bit of a piece of shit selfishly thinking about my potentially forgotten birthday while the death count for COVID-19 is currently in the 1,600's and the risk and invisible killer is out there and I have no clue until 14 days from now if I have caught it in my last trip out buying groceries for myself or my mother. Even more conflicting is that in less than that countdown to see if I'm infected from today's outings, I'll be 40.

Yeah, this year isn't really the best and I'm wondering when the next shoes will drop and our world is far more of a stranger compared to what it should have been.


I guess, Happy Birthday, Pop.