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Birthday Song

Remembered this morning hearing this song that playing for me on my birthday was the subtlest most endearing way to remind me why love endures and why the pain of having some dreams big and small shattered is still no reason to feel wistful on a birthday. The years accumulate and with it the disappointments. I have rarely been where I imagined I would at any given point in my life - maybe lacking the right vision or perhaps misunderstanding the larger plan in which the universe had made me an infinitesimal part. Yet I have received the unwavering love and affection of a few that made up for everything else. Each birthday, they are the ones who give me reason to stay in the fight, they are the ones for whom I made a difference and just for them I do matter. 

This year, it so happened that my father is so disappointed in me that he wrote me message to wish me on my birthday but did not talk to me when I called. We can't seem to make peace with each other and all illusions of rapprochement fall apart the first time we don't agree about something. It unleashes his full fury and I realize am no longer able to tolerate it. In times past after such episodes I simply stopped talking to him for a while - a few days to a few years. In these difficult pandemic times, that is no longer and option -  I need to accept him for who he is, the irreparably broken state of our relationship that is not possible to mend and just carry on. 

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