My birthday was Monday. I am not sure it was an aortaversary–that might have been yesterday given I was in surgery on my birthday and woke up several days later. This was year 24.

I am not particularly nostalgic with time, anniversaries, even birthdays I suck with, my own and others. Being nostalgic for time is not something ingrained into me as a kid, and as I got older, just even having any at all seemed lucky. I have watched enough people around me die of less in my life–I am not ungrateful for it, it just seems kind of wrong to celebrate anniversary years–somehow psychologically it seems unsound to mark yearly passes. I suppose I should be celebrating surviving, but I guess I have never been able to thrive. Surviving is just what happens when you don’t give up. And I never ever fully have–though clearly I have had some obstacles along the way impeding some of my forward movement.

I even forgot my marriage anniversary–calling it a wedding would be suspect since it was just a paper signed in a lawyer’s office. But it was 2/17/17. I was off by 8 days. hahaahah. Of course this is only funny to me AND to Don. Once again my birthday passed without a lot of hoopla–he was out of state. I am here. My friend Brenda took me to the Monet exhibit at the museum and out to lunch. My bestie Alyse had me over on Tuesday–she’s got a stellar new place but kept the old Corona for nostalgia–she was the one I got set up in that old building I did a ton of work for my birth mother on. She gave me an oh my god, fucking fantastic leather jacket. And that was my 43rd.

I can admit I am terrible alone….I am not sure I have been in several decades. In the city I had enough friends I didn’t feel it. Here, it is absolutely isolating. I could barely get myself dressed the past few days. Yesterday I think I ate a bit of sushi from Tuesday night, iced coffee and…some dried cherries. And I cried in the morning at the doctor’s office. He has gone with me to almost all of my appointments since June and this was just hard hard hard for me.

I did try and record a vlog on my birthday, but the audio file did not record loud enough. So I am at it again soon. I think the only only thing I will have to remember is to never read the comments. I am positive that I will be told to kill myself and that I am ugly. That is the world we live in, after all. People are more about pushing other people down to lift themselves up. heartsandscars is the youtube channel. I’ll hook a link in here once I get the audio software—Don set me up with a full on video editing platform full of the best shit, well aside from the audio software.

Still alive, still trying.