"Happy Birthday, No One Cares"

"Happy Birthday, no one cares."

So sings Jakob Dylan in The Wallflowers' song "Witness". On this day last year, I found myself playing that song, and being caught off-guard by how perceptive my subconscious was being.

Birthdays are not occasions for celebration to everyone. While the image we are presented with is one of friends and family gathered 'round to show their appreciation, if not love, reality is not painted in such bright colors. For some of us, birthdays are yearly reminders that we are unable to stop the flow of energy and people out of our lives. They exist to taunt us with the knowledge that our dreams are as far away as they have ever been, coated slick with another layer of stardust.

Last year, my birthday hurt in a way it never had before. While much of my family had abandoned giving a damn when I was young, and the way a 'friend' attempted to make the day special in my college years was my introduction to full-blown depression, nothing prepared me for how it felt to have the one person I consider most special forget the day. I never expect much, but there are a small handful of people I count on to remember I exist, so I can remember that fact myself. To be forgotten was soul-crushing, and the ensuing apology came to mean very little when my Christmas gift was later ignored for months.

That lyric hit me hard, because often it does feel as if no one cares. Expressing that thought has gotten me in trouble in the past, but considering that virtually every relationship I have is entirely one-sided, and I run what I call an 'energy deficit' because I put in far more than I get out of those friendships, I don't think I was wrong to make the claim. 

If I can't count on people to be there for me, what I can count on are the important records of my life. Those are always sitting on the shelf, ready for when I want to spend time with them. In that respect, records can be our best friends, because they are dependable, and they don't disappoint us once we learn to love them. "Breach" is one of those records that I find myself going back to time and again, because I continue to discover new wrinkles that apply to where life has taken my psyche. The reasons I love it now are not the same as when I loved it then, but being able to evolve and develop together deepens the bond.

"Your wishes won't be coming true this year
Now darling don't you cry
We're gonna teach you everything
Where you'll learn to get by
Now lesson number one in homicide
Is emotional murder's no crime"

The best way to prevent yourself from being the victim of emotional murder is to not invest your emotions in anyone or anything. That is not exactly a healthy way of living, but neither is putting yourself in situations that are destined to beat you down again and again. 'Get back on the horse' they say, as if a horse is a lightning strike, and it can't throw you off a second time and injure you even worse. Hope is a lovely concept, but at a certain point it loses its potency when we can no longer remember the last time it paid off.

This year comes with the new wrinkle of blowing out the candles on dreams. Perhaps it was foolish to ever have them, but the time spent pursuing even the most basic version of them has ripped open emotional wounds I thought my creative work had sealed shut. What I was once proud of has become the bane of my existence, the identity I held for myself has become a costume that no longer fits. As such, I am giving up on those thoughts that I could make anything of my work. When the world tells you often enough that they don't care, and you can no longer stand to listen to your own lies convincing you that you even care yourself, the lesson eventually sinks in.

The only birthday wish I have made for most of the last twenty years is for it to not be the worst day of the year. Seldom has that been the case, and in all honesty it doesn't help when it isn't. That day didn't manifest in a better way, there were just others that dragged me down even further.

And so I spend this of all days with this essay, hoping that putting these thoughts into words might get them out of my head.

"You come around here, you'd better bring a witness
Everyone in here's on the guest list
When you're gone you won't be missed
Keep one eye open when you kiss"

At times, it feels like the only person who notices when I pull away is me, because I miss the times when I wasn't quite as dispirited by people. I will spend the day tallying the numbers of who does and doesn't remember, or can't be bothered to click a button or type a couple of words when they are prompted.

Relationships seem to inevitably wither on the vine, and not just with people. I find myself not loving music the same way I used to, but despite that fact, the guest list for my party is a collection of my favorite albums. Maybe it's better that way.

Happy f'n birthday to me.