Another year survived.

Another birthday has come and gone, another year of death being denied.

This is always a hard time of the year for me, it's one of those flash points where suicide is a very real possibility.  This year has been marginally better than past, I only had a small cry at the start of the day.  This was also the first year when I did not have any of my children home to wish me happy birthday.  I guess it was this that brought me to tears more than the depression of having survived another year and the futility of the future.  Having had both children as part of my life for almost 20 years, always at home, always near, it is a shock when you sort of wake up and realise that they are no longer part of your everyday life.  I know that a lot of people leap for joy and say how happy they are that their children are gone, but this is not the case with me.  Unlike my mother whose only desire was to manipulate and control me, I want my children to love their father for being the man I am.  My children will achieve whatever fate has in store for them, and not what their father can do for them.  I gave my children freedom, and I think with that they have become wonderful adults.  They laugh and think I'm silly for keeping all the things they made for me as they grew up, or those achievements they made, memories that will be for them to remember when I am gone.

So unhappy birthday to me for another year.