It's my birthday. Which makes me sad for two reasons, firstly cos my birthday always makes me sad. Not due to getting old or anything but due to childhood trauma, birthdays were a way for my mother to show publically how much she wanted the world to think she was a caring mother while in private I was scared and alone. So my birthday tends to trigger dark and sad memories and I'm often left feeling scared and alone. When we lived with my ex birthdays were banned unless the ex wanted to show off in some social way, which was extremely rare as we were mostly bared from leaving the house except for groceries once a week. So my children never got their first birthday experiences until after we left him, for my daughter that was her fifth birthday, third for my son. As such for my sweet children birthdays are a special day to celebrate their lives and their place in this world. A way for me to remind them how glad I am to have had them in a way. That's what birthdays mean to us. They also insist that I should celebrate my birthday too, cos, as my daughter put it, I deserve to be celebrated for being alive too. So for them I try to be less sad and enjoy my day. It's easier with distractions.
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