{"id":2506,"date":"2022-09-17T09:50:37","date_gmt":"2022-09-17T13:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/2022\/09\/17\/birthday-56\/"},"modified":"2022-09-17T09:57:06","modified_gmt":"2022-09-17T13:57:06","slug":"birthday-56","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/2022\/09\/17\/birthday-56\/","title":{"rendered":"Birthday 56"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m in my local caf\u00e9 enjoying the now traditional birthday gift of my in-laws: a credit at Sumach Espresso. They started doing this on my 50th birthday I think. It\u2019s really lovely and thoughtful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all make at least a little more contact with those we know around our birthdays unless we actively avoid it. These brief conversations provide little touchstones: deciding what to share with people I used to know better but now see infrequently. And asking myself how I\u2019m feeling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember when I turned 23 thinking, \u201cwow! At this age my dad had two kids and was working as the head of the English department at a high school.\u201d I just couldn\u2019t fathom it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I turned 27, I thought about the fact that, at the same age, my step-dad was in a relationship with an older woman, my mom, who had four kids ranging in age from 12 to 7. Absolutely beyond my comprehension. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, especially after the traumas of the past two years, I am thinking about the fact that my step-mom died from metastatic skin cancer at 56. Somewhere I still have the Mother\u2019s Day card I bought and wrote in the last day I saw her alive. I never got to give it to her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My situation is not so dire as hers. I have every reason to believe that I\u2019ll be fine physically. However, part of my birthday coincidences was my first post-treatment CT scan. With any luck, there will be nothing to see, but I can\u2019t help but be stressed about it. I honestly don\u2019t know what I would do if it showed cancer. I\u2019m not sure I can go through all that again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m hoping that this winter I can begin to work through the trauma of the past two years and find a healthy way to be in the world again. I really thought I\u2019d be well on my way by now, but I am more psychologically damaged than I thought I was. I hope and intend to put real effort into recovery mentally and physically this winter so that my next birthday is a more simple affair emotionally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Till then, finding the small things to enable the bigger work, is the task day to day. Espresso. Visits with one or two friends. Doing tasks that I know I can manage. Sailing. Canoeing. Reading. Hoping to find enthusiasm and desire again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Heading back in after a lovely sail with Scouts on Thursday evening. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m in my local caf\u00e9 enjoying the now traditional birthday gift of my in-laws: a credit at Sumach Espresso. They started doing this on my 50th birthday I think. It\u2019s really lovely and thoughtful. We all make at least a little more contact with those we know around our birthdays unless we actively avoid it.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coffee","category-ramblings"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/img_2856-scaled.jpg","pbg_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/img_2856-scaled.jpg",1536,2048,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/img_2856-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/img_2856-225x300.jpg",225,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/img_2856-768x1024.jpg",768,1024,true],"large":["https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/img_2856-768x1024.jpg",768,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/img_2856-1152x1536.jpg",1152,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/img_2856-1536x2048.jpg",1536,2048,true],"neve-blog":["https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/img_2856-scaled.jpg",465,620,false]},"pbg_author_info":{"display_name":"kapn","author_link":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/author\/mm_admin\/","author_img":"kapn"},"pbg_comment_info":"2 comment","pbg_excerpt":"I\u2019m in my local caf\u00e9 enjoying the now traditional birthday gift of my in-laws: a credit at Sumach Espresso. They started doing this on my 50th birthday I think. It\u2019s really lovely and thoughtful. We all make at least a little more contact with those we know around our birthdays unless we actively avoid it.… ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paL6aj-Eq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2507,"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions\/2507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mm.kapn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}