Originally Written on IG on 11-05-2020, Edited & Posted 6-24-2021
I know, you’re scrolling and double tapping, but this blog entry of a post is worth it. I think so anyway. I wrote too much for the caption. Continued in the comments.
I wanted to make sure I posted a pic today, mostly for TimeHop next year. 2020 has been the shitshow to end all shitshows. I can’t name anyone who made it unscathed to this point, and we still have a couple of months left to go.
Today is my birthday. I have fully embraced my #FuckYouForties and I’m really enjoying them. But I had that attitude all though my teens, my twenties, my thirties, and I expect to retain it into my fifties and beyond. I’m just… me. Take it or leave it, you can’t hurt my feels.
This is the first year in many we have not celebrated at Disney. I am not eating at Citricos or Ale & Compass or Sanaa. I am not enjoying a balmy Orlando night during our BirthaVersary trip (21 years Handfasted this past March, 20 years of legality in ten days).
What did I get? I got an amazing meal with most of my family made entirely from scratch by @mal_havok. I got spoiled. I get to spend time with my oldest this weekend as he’ll be fortuitously (and safely!) in town from school.
Yesterday was a year since my official “you have #MultipleSclerosis” diagnosis after many years of head-scratching and wrong diagnosis. This broken body is garbage. It was genetic garbage when I got it and it’s just gotten steadily worse. I had intentionally requested an appointment not on my birthday because I knew it was coming. It turns out requesting that was as useful as demanding my mother not die on my oldest childs’ birthday – it’s still a garbage month and the actual date didn’t matter.
I’m not demonstrative. I don’t do big gestures. I’d love a low key gathering of all my favorite internet friends. One where everyone is socializing and I can just wander around quietly. It would be amazing. They’re pretty much all current or previous @PunkyMomsDotCom’s, and that realization brings me so much joy
I’ve touched a lot of lives, and a lot of lives have touched mine. I’ve met some of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know this way. It’s an amazing feeling and it warms my heart. It’s kind of like knowing my kids will make a difference in the world…#PunkyMoms has made, and will continue to make, all the difference in the world to the people who need it.
So that’s my birthday! In the end, it’s just another date on the calendar. I’ve stopped marking the passage of time by them. I know how many birthdays I’ve celebrated without my sister, without my mom, without my grandparents. I know how many birthdays I’ve missed. With a lifetime marked by various sickness and death, I think we celebrate every day because we’ve learned the hard way that a bad day is just around the corner. No use in waiting for a special occasion, today, every day, is a special occasion.