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Yesterday was my birthday. Ten years ago, I was very ill (I had a fairly serious case of mono) and home from school and spent a couple of hours not knowing if my best friend was alive or not. I was lucky that day. So many people were not. Eight years ago I had just started college and I woke to find out our foreign minister had been murdered.
It's a little strange, having your birthday be 9/11. For more than one reason.
And yet, yesterday was a birthday like any others. A really wonderful one. My parents, sweethearts as they are (the most wonderful), came by with breakfast and a mixer and a giftcard for my favorite bookstore in Stockholm. Mom cried, I cried, dad cried. There were a lot of hugs.
In the evening, I saw relatives and a couple of friends at a restaurant, and I got some fuzzy slippers and a yoga mat ♥ and everyone was lovely and the vegetarian buffet was great. I spent some time freaking out about my birthday in the past week (not because I'm getting older, more because, well, it's just one of those anxiety-inducing social musts) but none of my fears were warranted, it was absolutely the best. Despite having a mammoth cold, a maternal grandmother who does her very best to be bitchy, and an application to work on.
And you lot--thanks for the birthday messages and twitter congratulations and general awesomeness, I so very much appreciate it. Also, did you know![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
torakowalski is the best? She wrote me a fic about bb!Rogue and pre-Alex/Hank and Charles and Raven and the mansion and basically about how family is what you make of it and you can choose your family, if you need to. It's wonderful. She's wonderful. Send Me The News From A House Down The Road.
That's sort of what I've ended up taking away from having my birthday on what is historically a very violent day (going a little further back, it's also the day Salvador Allende died). Love, that is. Family. Friends. A quiet reaffirmation of what is important. Part of why I like doing the work I do (youth policy work). You know. Etcetera. That sort of thing.
It's a little strange, having your birthday be 9/11. For more than one reason.
And yet, yesterday was a birthday like any others. A really wonderful one. My parents, sweethearts as they are (the most wonderful), came by with breakfast and a mixer and a giftcard for my favorite bookstore in Stockholm. Mom cried, I cried, dad cried. There were a lot of hugs.
In the evening, I saw relatives and a couple of friends at a restaurant, and I got some fuzzy slippers and a yoga mat ♥ and everyone was lovely and the vegetarian buffet was great. I spent some time freaking out about my birthday in the past week (not because I'm getting older, more because, well, it's just one of those anxiety-inducing social musts) but none of my fears were warranted, it was absolutely the best. Despite having a mammoth cold, a maternal grandmother who does her very best to be bitchy, and an application to work on.
And you lot--thanks for the birthday messages and twitter congratulations and general awesomeness, I so very much appreciate it. Also, did you know
torakowalski is the best? She wrote me a fic about bb!Rogue and pre-Alex/Hank and Charles and Raven and the mansion and basically about how family is what you make of it and you can choose your family, if you need to. It's wonderful. She's wonderful. Send Me The News From A House Down The Road. That's sort of what I've ended up taking away from having my birthday on what is historically a very violent day (going a little further back, it's also the day Salvador Allende died). Love, that is. Family. Friends. A quiet reaffirmation of what is important. Part of why I like doing the work I do (youth policy work). You know. Etcetera. That sort of thing.
