hold you, hold on

happy birthday

It's not my birthday, my birthday's on february 6

Birthdays have never been a good date for me, when I was a kid it was a reminder that we didn't have the money to do the kind of parties my classmates often did, plus that even if we did, I wouldn't have anyone to invite plus the few friends I had were always on vacation and consequently out of town
Back then there were some good things though, I'd spend the day with my extended family and we'd all make dinner together, my mom and aunts and grandmas would usher me out of the kitchen so I wouldn't see the cake they were making, I'd sit on the makeshift extended dinner table with my cousins and share pieces of bread we stole under the table
Despite all the bad reminders, back then we still had something, back then things were good

(They weren't, there was so much stuff that was wrong, but on days like this the family would try to forget about all our inner conflicts and pretend to get along, we knew even back then, it was stuff like this that kept us sane)

Nowadays though, I've lost most if not all of that

I don't see my cousins anymore, I haven't seen them face to face in years, we were shunned and judged for our problems, the decisions we made to mend those problems, the sacrifices we had to make to save ourselves

Both my grandparents are dead, I only talk to one of my grammas, the other one having left us as soon as we choose ourselves

I haven't seen my father in three years, I haven't seen my sister in three years

With the main links of my aunt and uncle gone, my extended family left one by one

Now there's only me, my mom, and a family I haven't been able to connect with for the past four years

My friends, the ones I have left, are still on vacation, out of town, too busy to meet up

(It's fair, they have their own lives, they deserve to be happy)

Overall it's just not good

Every year is another reminder of all that we've lost, all that's changed, I know its for the better for the truth to be out, but sometimes I still wish we had that small bubble of lies, that fragile understanding that things would be fine as long as they stayed the same

Things always change though, time's ruthless like that

There's still some good things though, my mom's still here, and there's new people, good people, people I can't hug and who can't pull my ears for each year I've been around, but people who are there for me nonetheless, I love these people

I miss what I've lost, unfortunately I can't say yet that the love I feel measures to the grief, but I hope, wish, that with time, it will