Thread by @AlexandraErin

So it's my birthday.

First birthday after my vaccination feels less real or like a birthday or milestone than my birthday during Quarantimes, I think because last year I was way more consciously doing things to mark "Yes, this is happening and it's my birthday."

On the plus side it not feeling like my birthday means it also doesn't feel like the anniversary of my last day with a living mother. Though maybe that's why I've been so blah/down lately, anniversary effect creeping up on me unnoticed.

....the Twitter profile balloons have never felt sadder.

Is it actually only one year since Jack made the Fireball cake? Is that possible? Did that happen in 2020? Time is fake, and out of joint, and an illusion. It's a fake, out of joint illusion.

https://twitter.com/moofable/status/1270462437167333385

I had thought that I would take a mini-vacation for my first vaccinated birthday, but the stars lined up so that it made sense for me to do that a week or so before. So that's also probably part of why today doesn't feel like anything in particular.

I felt like I had some things figured out during my trip. Like I managed to chill out for a day and get my head screwed on straight, like I knew what I needed to do to get my life back on track.

Came home, sunk back into malaise almost immediately.

Now in fairness to myself... travel did kind of disrupt my carefully cultivated routine for getting to sleep at night and waking up in the morning and I'm still piecing it back together. Like, just today I realized I haven't been drinking any coffee or tea most days.

So maybe I'll actually get things figured out enough that I can have a decent year. Tomorrow's my birthday, so no expectations. Day after that is Friday after my birthday, minimal expectations. Saturday, Sunday, then Monday... first work week of year 42. Maybe I'll do better.

Couple stanzas of poetry, from a poem I used to read at open mic nights:

We ride the line together,
tell our stories, say our prayers.
We pass from dark to light
and back again, frequent flyers
on the annual trip around the sun,
all expenses paid
one way, or another.

Daylight changes things
more than we’d like to admit.
Each time the light dies
we swear we’ll get it right
next time, tomorrow,
next year, time after that.
We burn up our somedays
like we’re made out of maybes,
like we’ll never run out.

The lines "We burn up our somedays like we're made out of maybes, like we'll never run out." have gotten more comments from people than anything else I've read in public.

I'm feeling them now. Deep down in my bones.

I should be less morose. I'm 41. It's a prime number. That's the sort of thing I enjoy knowing.

Happy Gemini season and Pride, everybody. Happy birthday to me.

...just went to write about this thread in my journal and in the course of telling myself about it I described it as being about my birthday and depression, and was like, "Ohhh, right, that's what I'm describing."

Wild that I am so often surprised by a condition I know I have.