Happy Birthday, Dear
Today is my husband’s 50th birthday. It is, for us, a time of many anniversaries. In 10 days, it will be the 1 year anniversary of my brother Mike’s passing. In three weeks, it will be what should have been our 25th wedding anniversary. In six weeks, will come the anniversary of my discovery of his cheating, his denial, and his eventual moving out.
Today is his birthday. The gifts we gave him last year are still here. Unclaimed. Untouched. Rejected. Would anyone like a size L Rizzo jersey? It is still here, along with every gift the children have ever given him. Every framed photo, every hand-made card, every silly little drawing or clay project. Every piece of sports memorabilia they spent their hard-earned money on as they got older. I kept it all, thinking that at some point he might want to remember who we were, and would come back to claim it. Some of it. Any of it. Even just a picture of the kids? But it doesn’t look like that is going to happen.
A year ago, as I was struggling to care for Mike, and the kids, and my mom, and work, he was focused on training for his half marathon, and conducting an orchestra, and, well, other things. There was to be no help from him, no empathy, no compassion. Not even a visit to the hospital where we were sitting vigil. Not even a show of support for his son, who was close with his uncle. Not even an offer to attend his daughter’s parent-teacher conferences so that I could tend to other things. Just more of what I now recognize as triangulation, gaslighting, and destructive conditioning. An implication that I was crazy when I mentioned that I might want to see a therapist, a remark about how I could never survive without his income, biting comments about my appearance, and a smile as he asked where I’d like to go to celebrate our anniversary.
I do so hate anniversaries.
So today, while the City Wide Orchestra sings happy birthday to their new president, and he enjoys what I presume is a weekend in WI with one of his girlfriends, I will pack up his unclaimed gifts from last year. And all the years prior. And put them into boxes. And it will go next to the box of his Christmas ornaments that we painfully packed up last year as we decorated the tree. And I will take those boxes to the storage locker. And I will try my best to shut the door. Again.
Happy 50th, dear. I don’t think I’ll buy you a present this year.
