It's been kind of an awful couple of days for me, and I really need to get it out before it starts festering. Today's my birthday, and while I don't have a problem with getting older or birthdays in general, it's serving as a pretty awful reminder of how alone I've become. I'm not really sure how it happened, but I have very few friends and of the ones I do have, none of them seem to know that today's my birthday. I know I could have said something, but that seems even more pathetic. I also don't want to make people feel bad about forgetting or not knowing.
My parents did call and send a card (they live on the other end of the country), and I had to admit that I don't have any plans for today or any plans at all to celebrate. Saying out loud was not a happy moment for me.
I just feel awful and alone and terribly sorry for myself. It's not that I haven't made an effort to meet new people and make new friends -- it's just that I'm not very good at it.
About twenty minutes ago, I almost bought a big, gooey chocolate cupcake. I deserved it, I told myself. I'm not going to have a cake, after all. But the truth was that I didn't want it to celebrate; I just wanted it to make myself feel better. Once I admitted that, I stood there telling myself that the only problem that food can solve is hunger. The last thing I need to make this day worse is to fall back into emotional eating.
I don't know that there's anything I can do to make this day better. Right now, I just want to focus on getting through the day without making things worse. Although my head hurts from crying (and trying not to cry), I feel a little better just from having shared it. Thanks for listening.
Lisa