Two years ago, our lives had just been upended by the global pandemic. It was a terrifying time filled with uncertainty, anxiety and sleepless nights.
For me, shortly before COVID hit, my SD had decided to move a new girl in with us. Thinner, younger and jealous. She was miserable 95% of time with me. Hard to understand why; many girls had come and gone over the years and I had never been anything less than warm and welcoming. Despite how cold and sometimes downright rude she was to me, he was infatuated with her and she could do no wrong.
My birthday in 2020 was one of the absolute worst birthdays I can remember. The one bright part of my day was spending time with my son, who brought me me some of my favorite chocolates and a bouquet of flowers.
At this point, I had begun planning the best lockdown birthday celebration I could possibly concoct for her. I wanted so much for us to be friends and make her feel good with so much of the world in the original COVID panic. So much was closed and being limited to our household for the guest list โ I worked really hard on planning something fun for us. Her birthday is less than two weeks after mine and the SD was well aware of the surprise party I had planned; he was in on it and taking her out for a while in order for me to put up the homemade decorations and Happy Birthday banner I spent hours creating quietly, secretly in my bedroom.
Itโs painful even now to write about this.
I knew she wasnโt planning anything for me, but I was expecting my SD to have gotten me a gift of some kind โ over the years, we had always bought each other birthday, Christmas and Valentineโs Day gifts. Gifts that werenโt always extremely expensive, but always something to show that we cared enough for each other to show it in the form of remembering special occasions for one another. No other girl had ever stood in the way of our time honoured tradition before; and I especially enjoyed our handwritten cards with affectionate sentiments and inside jokes.
Friday, April 10th, 2020โฆI woke up to an empty house. I thought, well, maybe I was wrong and he or they HAD planned a surprise. I sent a good morning message and waited for a response.
I got calls from my parents, my sisters, and various friends. My son came by with his gifts and we sat and watched a movie together before he went back to Dadโs. I had still heard nothing from the SD.
When they finally came home at about 6:30pm that evening, she was carrying a 6 pack of her favourite beer. Neither of them wished me a Happy Birthday. I went to my bedroom and bawled my eyes out in my kittyโs fur. The SD heard me crying, and came in with one of her beers and offered it to me, saying he thought she and I could enjoy a few beers together for my birthday, he had typed a Happy Birthday text but forgot to hit send. I was speechless and didnโt believe him. No gift was one thing; no handwritten card was quite crushing and the fact that he had bought her her favourite beer and hadnโt bothered to even ask me if I wanted anythingโฆit was the first real sign of the beginning of the end. Definitely not a good way to celebrate another trip around the sun.
I still went through with the birthday celebration I had planned for her, including the pieces of art I had painted for her as gifts. I told myself that I had more class than to make someone else feel as forgotten as I did on my birthdayโฆbut my heart was heavy the entire night.
Fast forward to 2021. I had broken up with the SD and had someone special in my life and we celebrated quietly together with a nice candlelit takeout dinner and a single beautiful red rose. It was lovely. I kind of didnโt want to celebrate because I had such awful memories of my birthday the year before that I kind of wanted to skip April all together.
This year has been ONE HELL OF A YEAR. I spent six months working in harm reduction and saving lives, which was extremely rewarding to be able to help people. I started writing again. My partner and I got engaged. I started escorting again because it makes me happy. Iโm rebuilding Guilty Pleasures because it is my unique way of doing harm reduction and helping other women. Iโm finally healing and Iโm in such a better place than I ever was with the SD. There is a very stark contrast between this year and two years ago.
The night is always the darkest before the dawn. And that dawn is so beautiful and bright, I want to share its light with everyone I meet.
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