Birthday

Two nights ago (Halloween), I went to a costume dinner party with some friends and had a very nice time. I need to get out more. I'm a fairly solitary person (writing has that unfortunate side effect), and for the last year most of my social life revolved around my ex, so when that imploded there was very little left for me to do except rattle around the house by myself, which was not helping my mental state. The food was excellent, the company even better, and I appreciated the opportunity to get out and do something with others.

Yesterday was my birthday. I will admit, it sucked. Not because of my birthday itself -- I'm 42, and quite honestly not bothered by my age in the least -- but because I did not hear from her at all. Part of me did not expect to. She is not terribly sentimental in some ways, and very hard in others, and I realize that it's better for her to just have a clean break and not look back.

But another part of me really wanted her to find a way to wish me a happy birthday in spite of everything. It's not as if I was ever a jerk to her, or I did something awful to cause this breakup. So I pathetically spent the day waiting for a message of some kind that never came. I will admit to a moment of severe weakness in which I emailed her some of my thoughts. I wasn't nasty or snide or accusatory, but I was hurt.

I never heard back from her.

My team at work got me a cake and card and balloon, which was great, and a good friend of mine took me to lunch and did a pretty good job of cheering me up for a while. But when I got home later that night, the weight of this came crashing down on me again. Part of why this is so hard right now is that she was planning on taking today off so we could be together. She had a wonderful birthday present planned for me (no, I'm not going to say what it was), and the idea that she might still be planning to go through with it and give it to her new/old boyfriend instead is just killing me. I had another awful, sleepless night, and I think today I need to pick up some Unisom or some other over-the-counter meds to help out.

I'm going to a Caribbean dinner party on Saturday (same group that went to the Halloween dinner), and I'm looking forward to again getting out for a while.