Letters to Slimmy, Chapter 13

Happy 45th Birthday Slim!

Ever since that fateful day almost seven years ago, your birthday has been bittersweet for me. Today always marks the start of "The Stretch," that period of time from now through New Year's Day when a barrage of emotions courses through me like bullets, one after the other, leaving gaping holes in my soul. From happiness to sadness to anger to resentment to loneliness. And of course there's the guilt. The guilt of knowing I was never enough of a wife, a mother, a woman. I will feel the full impact of all these emotions for the next several months. Through the holidays which I will undoubtedly spend alone, again, until New Year's Day when I will once again resolve to put my life in perspective.

The Stretch has been killing me slowly, Slim. It steals a little more breath from my life each year. This time I promised myself that your birthday would be just that: the day that celebrates your birth and nothing more. I promised myself I would not let it be the beginning of a four month crying jag but a twenty four hour period where I will keep you in my thoughts with only the good memories. Yeah, right. I woke up this morning feeling as if I'd been hit by a truck. How can the pain still feel so fresh and new after all these years? It's never going to get any easier will it, Slim? No, probably not. So this year instead of fighting it I'm giving in to The Stretch. Embracing it, if you will. I'm going to allow myself to feel each and every one of those emotions and, as usual, I'm going to do it all alone. Will I emerge stronger on January 2? Probably not. But I hope I will at least feel a little better.

I Will Always Love You.

J