Today’s my 44th birthday.

I have tried to get a photo of myself on my birthday since my 39th.  Some are selfies, some Lendon took.  I thought I would post them today.

39:

40:

41:

42:

43:

And today, 44.

I actually wore my contacts today to color my hair and do my makeup, and I was going to leave them in for dinner…but now I feel weird without my glasses.

During the timespan these pictures were taken:

• New job.
• Fell & negated 3 months of shots in my back.
• Broken pipe that flooded apartment.
• Shoddy repair.
• Very bad insomnia + very pointless sleep study.
• Had some more shots.
• Moved.
• Had a stimulator implanted in my back (basically an internal TENS unit).
• Had the stimulator repositioned.
• Stimulator quits providing adequate pain relief.
• Layoff.
• 3-level fusion.
• Physical therapy.
• New job.
• Electrified needles at S-I joint.
• Moved.
• More electrified needles.

And in some respects, I feel like my world has grown increasingly smaller with each year.  It’s hard to be social IRL.  It’s hard to just keep going.  It’s hard to know that there’s really not a solution for what’s broken, only the occasional squirt of superglue to kind of stick things together enough to get through another week, another month, another year.

It requires effort to break away from my shell.

I never know if I’ll have enough energy to deal with a lot of people.   It’s hard to make people believe you’re basically okay when you’re really not.  But in a lot of ways, it’s self-perpetuating.  It’s hard to make yourself go out…even if it’s something good…just because you’re not really USED to that anymore.

I usually don’t make everyone go out for dinner on my birthday – Lendon and I just usually go have our steak and pie.  His stepmother’s birthday is a week before mine and we go out for hers, then my birthday is always right around Mother’s Day (and sometimes ON Mother’s Day).  And his mom is not one to share “her” day.  My 39th was on Mother’s Day and I got a rather snide “happy birthday.”  Needless to say, I will not be joining them for lunch tomorrow.  I will stay home with my furry children and play video games in my pajamas.  But I digress.  The point is, that’s like 3 dinners out in one pay period and ain’t nobody rich, so I feel bad insisting on my dinner.

This year, we did go out with Lendon’s family.  They’re basically my family too, after all this time, and my family lives far away.  I suggested The Garage, which is (a) down the street from our house, (b) relatively cheap, and (c) relatively noisy, so niece and nephew being their 3- and 5-year-old selves won’t be a big issue.  They have a full bar, so I decided to have a birthday cocktail.  They have some fruity-type drinks that are served “in a ridiculous plastic pineapple.”  I don’t really do fruity drinks anymore, so I had them bring me a Jack & Coke in a pineapple.  I really wanted to steal the pineapple.  BADLY.

I didn’t, though. Had it been in the drunken days of my youth, there would have been a table full of pineapples and nobody would have missed one.  But since there was only ONE pineapple, it was too obvious.

We also went out for dessert:

The cupcakes are from Pinkitzel.  This one is salted caramel, which is good, but it’s not my favorite…I think the peanut butter one is my favorite, or the coconut.   It’s not like any of them are BAD.  They also had macarons, but it costs almost as much for one macaron as it does for a cupcake.

I’m not letting my birthday get ganked in the future.

Or at least I’m going to try.

I’m tired of pretending it’s fine.