The Battle of Waterloo

Most of my friends and family know I have developed an aversion to my own birthday. It started when I was very young. Birthdays, which seemed often be memorable events for other people, were usually disasters for me. Maybe it's just the timing of the day in the summer, June 18th, but it just sucks.

Over the years I've noticed a pattern. I will have one decent birthday then a bunch of bad ones. A few years ago, it was great. I woke up, got some really nice gifts from my wife. My kid brother, my son and my Dad were visiting for the day. I got a call from an editor telling me I was good enough to get paid for writing finally. There was some good food. Hell, even the sun was shining.

By no means was this spectacular. There was no drunken orgy, no wild spree through the town, no loud rock and roll kind of day, but it was really nice. It was also the best birthday I've ever had. Before it was over, I knew I needed to remember it because it was the rare exception.

The pattern is one good birthday in about seven lousy ones. The remaining six vary from sad to plain awful. Some of my favorite bad birthdays have had me alone most of they day, hungry because of no groceries, overdrawn at the bank, working a triple shift and accidentally initiating a fight with my girlfriend -all within the same 24 hours.

My second marriage is different in many aspects. We're actually less financially secure than the first marriage and the daily struggle is more difficult in a lot of ways. The second wife has tried very hard to fight the tide of doom and gloom that usually falls on the 18th of June, but it's usually well beyond her ability to hold back the tidal wave of bad things coming.

I have tried, unsuccessfully, to ignore the entire thing, to let it be just a day. It's kind of like Christmas for the Grinch. Regardless, it comes. It rears its ugly head and I am forced to deal with it. As much as I don't want to, I'm already starting to deal with it.

This year, the fix is already in.

I'm also looking at spending part of the day in court, dealing with my wife's cretinous ex-husband. Win or lose, the whole day will be shot with her worrying before the hearing then dealing with anger, angst or irritation about what happened in court the rest of the day. Nobody is going to be in much of a mood to celebrate anything. So, we're bumping it a few days, which is not exactly the same as a complete rain out, but still not much to look forward to.

I get some fair criticism for being a bit mopey sometimes (Damn you, Jay... Damn you to hell). I go negative every now and again, particularly when it comes to my home life. Also for a Buddhist, I seem awfully quick to jump on a cross over what is just another rising and setting of the sun. I guess, I put too much into the day because on some level, I want one guaranteed good day just for me out of the entire year. It's pretty selfish and requires more from the entire universe than is remotely reasonable. I still want it and it bugs me that I can't have it.