Today was a reminder of why I'm still alive and why I keep it that way.  Even though the past 6 months have been terrible in so many different ways, I finally got to sit down to dinner with an incredible and compassionate friend and have him support me in all the ways almost all of my family and my friends have not lately.

It seems like a simple thing, and something that many people don't think about twice, but the best gift you can give sometimes is to truly listen and empathize while realizing this isn't something you or I can fix.  I just need to voice my feelings, have someone hug me, and tell me how much I mean to them. I desperately needed that right now, and am so thankful that someone does care enough about me to make that time.

I know it's still going to be at minimum a hard few months ahead, but I need to remind myself that it's still worth it.  That there are those out there that really do care about me, and that I should never forget it.

I'm taking time for myself today, cleaning the apartment and appreciating my next door neighbor being out of town.  I'm breathing and trying to make sense of my life while transferring pool captain duty to a wonderful woman who has her shit together more than me at this point. 

I want to give up.  I refuse to do so, thankfully.  I have that strength.  I have to keep that resolve.

I know that birthdays are supposed to be joyful occasions.  An opportunity to experience how many people love you and care that you're around.  A time to celebrate the fact that you've passed another milestone in your life and look forward to the next year and the ones after.

Unfortunately, like most things in my life, I mostly only intellectually understand why people enjoy birthdays.  Mine...well, from since I was in middle school they've been a day I rather dread.  In high school, I was a misfit, one where I knew better then to expect more than a few good friends to care and make an effort to recognize the day.  In college, it always fell between the end of  finals and when people came back to town for graduation, so I was usually alone as people cleared out for the time and was left celebrating as a package deal with another friend whose birthday was a few days later after everyone had returned.  Living as an afterthought.

Grad school, mostly the same.  After graduation I was moving around and struggling to move up in the adult job world.  My first birthday post-graduation was spent at the commencement ceremony of the university I'd worked at for the past 9 months, having given my two weeks notice and starting my new job in NYC in three days.  Ever since then, it's been an issue of friends. 

NYC can be a very isolating place and the core group that I initially met turned out to be much older and drifted apart about two years after I met them. Since then, I was lucky and had a good friend move to the city, only to have to move back home after losing her job in the recession.  Of course, that was back in 2010.

I want to have a normal birthday, a normal life, where I feel appreciated and hopeful about the past and next years.  I can't remember what that's like at least when it comes to birthdays.  I have good days and weeks where I believe it's true, more when I'm just trying to convince myself over the ennui, but this birthday disappointed hardcore on both the family and friend fronts.  I'm trying to be positive and make the best of the situation but damn it's hard.

I want to be happy.  I'd settle for just not feeling like I don't have anything to look forward to in terms of how my emotional life is going.  I'm just finding it particularly hard at the moment considering that another milestone has passed and I'm more disappointed than ever in life and relations.

Visitor staying, and thrilled!  Busy and can't talk for now but will follow up later.

Happy Mother's Day!  Yesterday I joined my family for the day, and as always my mother was funny, gracious, and kind.  My father managed to insult/backhand insult her at least ten times but at least she fights back now.

And from a totally selfish perspective, wow it sucked in a lot of ways.  After a long day of showing them around Battery Park (since even though my sister's been in the city for about 5 years and works downtown she hasn't been there), and other areas,  I realize that unfortunately most of the normal street vendors have fled because of the massive construction in the area. Long story short, I'm hot, becoming sunburned, and extremely dehydrated since my body does not tolerate heat as well as most people.

We adjourn to Stone Street (sidebar: did not know this exists as a permanent street food fair; awesome!), and sit outside to get dessert.  At this point, possibly because of the heat and dehydration, my tremor has become much more noticeable to me.  I ask for water from a waitress and after 10 minutes of nothing appearing, I notice there's a tray outside with glasses & water sitting there so I just pour myself one.  Except that I can only pour about 3/4 of a glass since I'm shaking so badly.

I drink that while realizing I'm shaking even more, so I ask my family "Can someone get me another glass?  I'm shaking too badly to do it myself."  I get glances of confusion and then my dad and sister reply with "Oh yeah, we forgot about that."

REALLY?  You forgot about the possibly permanent movement disorder I told you about over Easter that I've tried so hard to control and conceal the whole day despite my noticing it, but when I mention it because it's become so out of of control you only THEN remember it when I specifically ask for help even though when I was drinking the first 3/4 full glass I was very obviously shaking?

From 14 years old I've had chronic conditions, mental and recently physical and yet it seems that there's no sympathetic recognition of these. I think my family just wants things nice and neat.  If someone has cancer, they undergo treatment and then receive endless sympathy that it might recur, yet they don't have to deal with an active disease indefinitely.  Now I have two diagnoses, both of which require daily vigilance and maintenance, with varying degrees of success, and their reaction is to forget about it because they don't want to believe some things can't be fixed.  They actually require a lifelong struggle on a day to day basis.

I love my family, but sometimes they infuriate me with the inability to accept that I'm a flawed human being or the selective attention I get whenever they're trying to "fix" me, or conveniently forget that I have these "small" problems.

And they wonder why I don't come to them for advice.

Yesterday, okay, granted it was a stressful day at work since we are SO understaffed and we don't have a prayer of catching up that by 5:30 of hardcore mental gymnastics I'm ready to collapse.  Also not helping was that it was the last week of the pool season and many nights we've had to forfeit  from people not showing up.  Still, I felt mentally confused, totally emotional (I actually embarrassingly cried after losing my match), and left early.

Today?  Yeah, turns out a lot of it was PMS.  How can I experience PMS for the past 20 years of my life and STILL not recognize the symptoms?  Is this some stupid female brain thing that automatically throws us so off mentally that we somehow forget from month to month?   Damn, I wish this would go away, along with the other crap that's been happening. 

On the plus side, I've started cleaning (okay, not a deep clean, but enough) in preparation for one of my best friends who will be staying with me for the end of May (YAY!), finally purchased multiple toiletries and items that I'm almost running out of (leading to an over $100 bill, which sucks, but was necessary with NY prices), and if I can't get my mental house in order, at least try to get my physical apartment in order.  Small steps.  Try to remember it's all about the small steps.