Birthdays, in general, suck

This is my issue with birthdays: they never really work out. There is always SOMETHING negative that I can remember from every year- and then on my Bday, I add to the list, and remember them all at the same time. Its the one day a year where you can usually remember where you are, and it backfires in the worst way.

This year was pretty good, until the husband says he hoped to make up for all the crappy ones we've endured since we got married (and into the military). Then I remembered how bad it'd been in the past, and all the different places I'd been on my bday because of his job, and I just kind of realized how ridiculous and meaningless the last several years have been, and started wondering, what, exactly, am I going to do with myself now that I've started down this road and flushed my career down the toilet - and done so of my own free will. One thing just leads to another and it spirals out of control. And he meant well, and I know what he meant, and I appreciated the sentiment and it was WAY better than the ones in the past, except that I can't run away from my own memories, even just for a day.

And then my sister completely ignored the whole thing. I wasn't looking for a gift (I don't really understand why, except I don't like gifts from my own family- we have very different tasts and desisres, yet I always have to act happy and thankful, lest I be labelled 'ungrateful' - obviously I haven't TOLD them I have a BLOG. I don't tell them much, actually, out of self-preservation). But a phone call would have been nice. An email, even. I'm not even asking for a card :) My own sister. Who ever has these warm fuzzy feelings about sisters has apparently not spent any time with my sister & I.

I guess it boils down to this: Birthdays are just another one of those calander days that make you reflect on what you've accomplished in life, particularily in the past year, and I HATE days like that. I have nothing to show to myself, for myself. I feel very much like I am living in that Be Good Tanya's song "waiting around to die". It sounds a little harsher than intended, but basically its true. Another year has gone by, another tick on the wall, and I'm still waiting for....what? Life to start? life to hurry up and end? I imagine myself living to old age, and still trying to figure what is going on, what I want to do, and still having no answers at the age of 90.

Birthdays are just really emotionally packed days, where incindental things by other people get magnified & take on extra meaning (like my sister) and then you remember those things way longer than is healthy. Or I do :)

I'm tempted to stop celebrating all together, except I know deep down I'll still be thinking 'this used to me my birthday' and then nothing is really accomplished at all. I've tried that with Christmas, to no avail. The holidays suck too.