Her Birthday

When I set out on this one-blog-post-a-day-in-the-month-of-November thing (also known as NaBloPoMo), I wrote myself an outline of things I was going to talk about on certain days, and on others, hoped I'd just be able to come up with something. I outlined the first week, since those were things on my mind, and then some other days.

A few I chose:
November 20, the day I'm going home for Thanksgiving
November 22, Thanksgiving
November 19, my birthday

And today: November 16.

It's my first girlfriend's birthday.

Unless the gods do something cruel to me (which has happened before), this will be the first year since our 15th birthdays (our birthdays are 3 days apart, as you can see from the above reference to my own) without acknowledgment of it.

We met each other weeks before our 16th. We were together for 17 and 18. She sent me a card for 19 that led to us being together again. She sent an email on 20. Last year, for 21, I sent her a facsimile of the New York Times front page from the day she was born as a birthday card. And also, the cruelty of the gods, to which I alluded, happened.

I was walking to the subway after having lunch with a friend actually around the corner from where I now live. I was walking north on 2nd ave and then turned west and, boom, right as I turned the corner, there she was. I immediately hung up the phone with my brother.

I don't think the gods will mess with me today -- or Monday -- but stranger things have happened.

On the one hand, I'm saddened by this. It's like the true end point to something that was so fantastic and then so, well, not. And then it just became nothing. She had an interview in New York, I called her to say that I hoped it went well, she emailed back saying thanks and it was nice to see me, and that was it. No fight. No goodbye. Just a dissipation. That was 3 Aprils ago already. Feels like shorter in a lot of ways.

So with that, this is the probable last time I reference her birthday in my life. I'm sure I'll think about it 366 days from now (It's leap year in '08, right?), but I won't speak about it or write about it because it's not worth speaking or writing about.

It's a bittersweet ending, I'm sure.

And yet, she probably has none of those feelings on her end and she doesn't even think of me. And I will do my best to not think about her, at least until the inevitability of opening the New York Times and seeing her wedding announcement, or running into her (since we do live in the same zip code)...I just hope that isn't tomorrow.