This year, I decided to celebrate a birthweek rather than a birthday.  I got out of the hospital on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday I planned to go out to dinner and then have a slumber party with friends.  I bought groceries to make everyone brunch on Sunday morning.  And on Sunday afternoon, we were going to bake Christmas cookies.

Right.  So that was the plan.  Here’s what actually happened.  I got to my friend’s place Saturday afternoon and was too exhausted to go out to dinner, so my friends went out together and promised they’d be back soon to watch movies and hang out.  Turns out they drank too much wine at dinner, got drunk, then went out to a club and drank more, and didn’t get home until 2 am. 

Sunday morning, they were hungover and vomiting.  I had to drive to my apartment and get my anti-nausea meds I took during chemo to get them to stop throwing up.  Obviously, the food I bought for brunch went uneaten. 

On the way to the cookie bake that afternoon, I dropped these friends off at the grocery store to get baking supplies.  While I was waiting in the car, a disheveled woman knocked on my window and explained she was pregnant and homeless and hungry.  I gave her all the money in my wallet — which was all the money I’d received that week for my birthday. 

At the cookie bake, a dozen of us met in a ginormous kitchen to bake cookies and then exchange them.  I wasn’t up for baking, so I sat in the kitchen and chatted with everyone while they cooked.  I quickly realized this wasn’t a helpful situation — everyone there except me was engaged or married, and several had young children.  The entire conversation centered around a few topics: engagement rings, wedding plans, birth control, and breastfeeding.  I had nothing to contribute to the conversation.  And, in fact, the more they talked, the more alone and deficient I felt.  I left early and in tears.

On Monday, my actual birthday, I spent most of the day in bed, too exhausted to think of anything fun to do.  I had made plans to go out to dinner with a friend, but we had takeout in my apartment instead because he’s too depressed and agorophobic right now to venture out into public.

Another friend was supposed to take me to a show in NYC on Tuesday, but he got sick so we decided to do something low key.  We went to a movie and left before it was over because it was so uninteresting.

 And that was my birthday.  My week was broken — mostly thanks to my friends, who are broken and imperfect…but then, so am I.  So maybe it was a fitting birthday after all.