Anxiety

I have a love/hate relationship with my birthday, and the month of February. I love that I usually had a day off on or around my birthday for Presidents Day and because of that I had birthday parties on the ski slopes most years. A bunch of girls running around the lodge at Alpine Meadows was not a bad way to spend the day. I loved that my mom made my day and Valentine’s Day 2 SEPARATE occasions. I love that the first call I get every year is from my parents telling me all about the day I was born. It’s the same story but I never get tired of hearing it. I get to hear about how my mom was so dehydrated from literally puking all 9 months that she had to go to the hospital and be hooked to an IV for fluids. While doing that she casually mentioned that her stomach hurt. Um yeah, that was LABOR. I also love that when the Dr came in to ask about drugs, my dad turned to him and said “no, and don’t come in here and ask again”...he never came back and my mom rocked labor with no meds of any kind. I love that one year, my parents threw me a surprise birthday party before school. That’s right. They set all the clocks back, so that I would get up thinking it was the regular time, and while I was getting ready my mom was driving around picking up all my friends. The doorbell rang; I opened it to see all their faces and was totally confused. In fact I started to cry and slammed the door, with them still standing out front. I composed myself and let them in, but the bizarre school day breakfast birthday party totally sums up my childhood.


The hate part is that I now have a total aversion to anything in the shape of a heart, conversation candy, the colors pink and purple etc, but the big anxiety is this. All my grandparents died, or had an event that led to death during February. My dad’s mom died suddenly the week I was turning 4, she was on her way to pick up my birthday present. My family still insisted on having a party, but seeing the pictures I realize how blissfully unaware I was of the events around me. My dad’s dad, being in poor health to begin with, followed her a year later. The pics from birthday year #5 are even better than the 4th. So in gearing up for my 6th birthday I had a special birthday wish, I told my mom’s mom that for my gift she had to promise she wasn’t going to die. All I knew was my birthday didn’t seem to be a good time for family, and I was tired of it ruining my parties. She made the promise, and I started to relax again, and then the big 21st birthday. I was in college but the entire family met for dinner, and the next morning my grandpa had a stroke. He never recovered and 2 months later he was gone. This time I was old enough to know just how much death sucked, and it was terrible. The year I turned 29 my grandma called to tell me she was going to have a surgery and it was set for Feb 28th. I begged her to move it; just a few days...they all know how I feel about Feb. She told me I was silly, that she would be fine. I didn’t agree, and flew out the weekend of my birthday to spend what I was hoping wouldn’t be the last with her. 2 weeks later and 24 hours after her surgery something had gone terribly wrong. 36 hours later I was on a flight to San Francisco to take her home to die surrounded by family. She made it 1 week and into March, and I still have a hard time talking about that week but it was amazing. Near the end she looked at me and said “I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep that promise anymore”. Knife. Thru. The. Heart.

So the birthday for me is a mixed bag of stuff. Blessed with a wonderful husband, family and friends that make time for me and include me in their lives, and places to go, people to see, dinners to have etc. But I also have the nagging sad part that sneaks up on me in the quiet of it all.