it's my birthday (tomorrow), and I'll cry if I want to (today and tomorrow, but hopefully not the day after)

So I've been in a huge funk lately. It's an annual thing: I always get depressed this time of the year. Some people who have been unlucky in love get depressed every year at Valentine's Day. Many, many people get depressed at Christmas. Me, I love Valentine's Day and Christmas. For me, it's my birthday which is the quagmire of unhappiness on the calendar.

The roots of this malaise are in my childhood. Let me just say that my own parents have forgotten my birthday twice. When I say forgotten, I mean F-O-R-G-O-T-T-E-N. One year they asked me why I was being so curt with them, and I informed them that it was because they hadn't called me on my birthday (or sent a card or a gift, but I left it at calling), and there was an awkward pause. "Umm... what... when is it... OH, YOU'RE RIGHT!"

My ex-husband sucked at my birthdays as well. The entire time I was married to him, I didn't have a birthday cake. In theory I could have made one myself or bought one, but that seemed too pathetic. One year he told me all excitedly about a bakery he'd gone to and a wonderful cake I would have loved which he'd considered buying. I heard this story over a cakeless meal at home.

Now the Sober Husband makes a genuine effort (and a genuine cake) each year, but still there's a seasonal depression. It's exacerbated this year by a recent visit from my parents and by a first-time-ever Thanksgiving funk. Thanksgiving has always been fine by me, a pretty happy day, but last year I was traumatized when none of my invitees RSVPed. Right up to the day before Thanksgiving, every time I asked, all invited guests would say, "Uh, I don't know." This was so weird for me. Every other year I'd invited people for Thanksgiving, I got firm answers and plenty of happy acceptances. Two of the invitees had spent Thanksgiving at my house the year before and had a wonderful time, getting drunk off French battle cocktails (the same drinks Napoleon's officers quaffed to get their nerves ready for the fighting) and eating past satiety. It's not as if I were reaching socially, as the invitees were comprised of my brother-in-law (the only in-law who likes me), his wife, a friend and her daughter, the friend's best friend, and a single woman who had proclaimed her loneliness and lack of options. When it came to the week of Thanksgiving, I had no idea what to buy, how much to cook, and whether anyone was coming. In the event, none of them did show up, but the children, husband and I had an amazing feast by ourselves.

This year, I couldn't bring myself to invite anyone. I couldn't set myself up for that again. At least the husband and children will be here, and indeed Iris Uber Alles has been shocked by my inertia. "Aren't you making that cranberry sauce again? I love that! It's good!"

I should focus on all the other Thanksgivings, where the guests RSVPed and came and were happy, and just write off last year as an anomaly. If it weren't the same frigging week as my birthday, perhaps I could, but it's just not the right time of the year for me to be breezy and glass-half-full. It's not as though I've been traumatized right out of inviting in general I've had some dinner parties since then, which were all perfectly fine (at least so far as I know. Lord only knows what the guests have to say). I just feel unwilling to try Thanksgiving again.

Last week, I felt great before my parents came (and before I had $1,800 in emergency repairs done to my car... which sadly does not appear to have been fixed, and before I had a fight with my husband over whether it is reasonable for his mother to require that we fly to Martha's Frigging Vineyard on the other side of the continent and stay in some godawful house with his family for HER birthday AND a squabble with the husband over whether it was reasonable for me to spend $17 on a Spongebob DVD for Lola, and, less selfishly, before the San Francisco bay oilspill, which is profoundly depressing and which causes guilt in me because my personal response so far has been only one day of volunteering). Hopefully next week will be another week of cheer. This week, though, is going to require a stiff upper lip (and possibly some French battle cocktails).