Technically, its not my birthday

Its well into the small hours of the 19th so my birthday is over. I can't say it was all that much better than last year. Just like I can't say things are all that much better than last year.

I'm not sure where it went wrong. I suppose it was the evening as tasks piled up at work. Or maybe it went wrong before that. Maybe it was over the weekend or even before then. I spent so much time trying to make it good for everyone else. I wished I could take them all away to the city where we could eat German food and do all sorts of fun things together. Lately, I've realized even more how much they miss out on because of me. If I couldn't take them off on an adventure, maybe I could at least bring a little adventure to them.

I started planning a week ago. I wanted a black forest cake. From there, I planned out a dinner of schnitzel, potatoes, red cabbage and bread rolls. I wanted homemade food. I wanted a nice birthday breakfast as well, so cinnamon rolls were planned. It was all the things I would have loved for someone to do for me.

So I cooked my own birthday dinner. The family kept up on dishes, which I was grateful for but it came with the price of listening to people as they told me over and over how many times they loaded the dishwasher. I would have been happy to do my own dishes and did a fair share of them, just to getaway from the complaining that I was using so many dishes. I baked my cake with some help from my oldest. The price of the ingredients suffocating my conscience.

Twinges of annoyance abound. Constant reminders of how I fail, and reminders of how little I matter otherwise.
The phone call when I've gone to work, "I couldn't remember if you went to work at 2:30 or 3:30."
"Oh, well, its 4:30 now, so I can't really talk."
The passive-aggressive remark from someone I didn't post a birthday message to earlier in the year, but they were posting one to me. I actually don't post birthday messages.

Finding out halfway through the night that my work load doubled.

It builds, you know. Those small grievances build to where I want to burst into tears. So, as the sounds of snoring rumble through the room, I get up.  Angry because I have to be the one to leave, and although its technically not my birthday, it still is because I haven't gone to sleep yet. Angry because we live in a culture that builds up your birth into some sort of frantic day to prove you are loved and worthy enough to take up space on the earth. And angry because I obviously have failed at something so simple as that.