My birthday's in a week. Already I'm feeling down. Stupid, for a double-stroke survivor to not greet the occasion of every anniversary of my birth with sweet gratitude that I'm alive. But my birthday hasn't been a very joyous occasion for the last couple of years. Since my thirty-ninth, actually. That was a great birthday. I was healthy. I was working. I was hitting the gym regularly and looked and felt better than I had for the majority of my life. I'd moved back to LA the year before and was finally hitting my stride. How was I to know the flu that would kick my whole relapse off was little more than a month away? Lo, that bitter pill of hindsight!
My fortieth wasn't a birthday, it was damage control. It was finally sinking in that my flare, nearly a year long by now, wasn't a flare at all and wasn't going away. No, I was indeed getting sicker. All the juicing and resting and supplements and dietary changes that had helped me get a handle on my fibro before weren't saying boo to whatever ailed me now. My mom, bless her heart, saw the depressed valley I was careening toward. She flew into town and plied me with food and drink to distract me from the fact that I was sliding into middle age with my life completely out of my control.
My second fortieth birthday was better. Kind of. My husband tried that year, he really did. If I'd had normal health like him, he would have knocked it out of the park. The entire day was a surprise. We started off with a gorge-fest through Grand Central Market, an LA institution of food vendors and grocery stalls that's been around since 1917. Super cool, but it was really hot out. Which made our next stop, a lane at the gun range with a .45 caliber, a much more temperate experience. But it was really loud. By the time we'd shot through our boxes of bullets, I had sort of floated into a numb state of sensory survival. Which coupled with bourbon made dinner oddly fun but the entire day completely exhausting. I think I spent the next two weeks in bed.
My third fortieth birthday, what can I say, things were getting worse. My husband and I were now deep into the anger phase of my never-ending relapse. Not that I'm saying a word against the man who's never left my side through the unimaginable. But he cited having to work the next day as the reason he didn't take me out to dinner. Luckily my girlfriend swooped in and distracted me, bless her precious heart. So I was spared having to spend the evening of my third fortieth birthday starting World War III with my husband. No, I waited until the weekend to do that.
I understand calling this my fourth fortieth birthday makes me sound a year older than I actually am. But I've decided to remain forty until I'm fifty, at which point I will then admit to being forty-five. My husband has another surprise day in store for me this year, and has even taken a whole week off. My health is more up than down these days. I've got no reason to be bummed out. But I've reached maximum burnout and need a week in a hammock on the beach so I can find the drive to continue rebuilding my life. Yet no vacation is forthcoming. So I've got to coalesce a little relaxation out of my staycation over here. I may even live life on the wild edge of abandon and go ahead and take the whole week off.
Thanks for joining,
Leah
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