Sometimes stories beg to be told and as Anne Lamott says:

“You own everything that happened to you.

Tell your stories.

If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better”

This story has sat like a stone in my stomach for far too long, here goes:

You acknowledged my birthday that first year when we were in the honeymoon phase, those precious few months before I got pregnant.

You were acting all mysterious and said:

“I need to get some breakfast food”

and I was fully confused because we were fully stocked, but you went out anyway and came back clutching a CD and some flowers

You had the date wrong, exactly a month early!

So I laughed and loved you all the more.

But then for the next eleven years of our relationship you never acknowledged my birthday

Not once

It feel’s unbelievable to write it now.

But it is true.

And I am not someone who needs a big fuss. I don’t care about Valentine’s Day.

I didn’t want anything more than a cup of tea in bed and a kiss as you said ‘Happy Birthday’

But nothing.

The first years, you said you forgot so I started reminding you:

‘It’s my birthday next week, the 21st, please don’t forget’

I tell you what really stung:

We had two young children and I wanted them to see their mother being celebrated and cherished.

I needed them to learn that from you.

That was your job.

I wrestled with letting go of caring

‘no me, no my, no mine’

Feeling my sensations and not attaching to them.

That’s how I survived.

Dissolving one red flag after another with my warped mind.

You didn’t celebrate their birthdays either (let’s not even talk about Christmas)

I organised everything, presents, cake, parties, food and you would sit in the corner playing your guitar or deeply engrossed in your one way conversations about psychology or Buddhism with other parents while I raced around, exhausted.

I hated you for that.

You said it was a deep trauma left over from childhood. That left you incapable of celebrating another.

Over the years, I stopped giving you thoughtful presents and making you beautiful cards because you said you didn’t want to celebrate your birthday.

And anyway, you had a habit of throwing them back in my face, when you weren’t happy.

Quoting my cards back to me with scorn.

It went against everything that I wanted to ignore your birthday, but I did it anyway, speaking your love language, I had hoped.

On the twelfth year, again, of course, nothing.

But I still hoped that you had a surprise up your sleeve. And so I swallowed my tears and I swallowed my pride and made breakfast for the kids whilst they hurriedly cobbled together birthday cards for me.

Nothing, Nothing, nothing.

And by lunchtime again, bitter tears burst through the dam and I went to the beach with friends.

I feel ashamed that I never mastered it. I never didn’t care, I never said ‘fuck you, I am having a party or going to a spa ‘

For many of those years I had no money of my own, 2 babies, toddlers, homeschooled kids and living a very basic off grid life

But as I say, I didn’t want anything material, I just wanted to be celebrated.

And you know, what hurt the most was not personal, it was the fact that you couldn’t understand that people are precious and life opens up when we give and give generously and give again.

That year was our last year together.

On my first birthday after I left you, you handed me a locally woven basket filled with fruit and vegetables.

Without a word, I opened the back of your van and put the full basket there for you to take away with you.

Some stories just beg to be told…

When the time is right

when Chiron gets brushed by the fat harvest moon

And when a change finally settles into the bones so that the debris can just float away.