Tomorrow is my second unmarried birthday.

I hate my birthday. It's been a bad day for years — a day to be disappointed. A day of promises that your partner will come home, only he won't. Or he'll forget. Or he'll blow the whole thing off as not a big deal, anyway.

Plus that whole Husband Moving Out the Day After thing — that will kind of taint your birthday — well, forever.

What was I thinking? How was this in any way a good idea? For the rest of my life, no matter how happy I am, no matter how good a place I'm in, November 14th will always be the anniversary of this, so far, hardest day. My birthday will always be the anniversary of the day before: the Day Before the Hardest Day. The Last Day.

That first birthday alone — it wasn't bad. It really wasn't.  But boy, did I work for that. The effort that went into not making it a big deal, making sure there were no expectations, making sure it was just any other day — it was a lot.

This year, I just can't muster the energy. I'm tired. The last couple of weeks have been hard. The effort involved in being that nonchalant, of steeling and girding and getting myself together so Thursday won't be crushing — the very thought exhausts me. To the point where I'm thinking one day of suck might be better than the week of prep.

The thing is, I used to really like my birthday. Not that anything big or important would ever happen, and not that I wanted that. But it was a nice day, and usually nice things would happen. Now, though, it just leaves me lonely and sad and wondering why no one will ever love me as much as my cat does.

I wonder what it's going to take to make that go away. I guess if something really amazing and magical happened on my birthday, that might knock the other associations into second place. Like, I don't know, Josh Groban showing up in my kitchen to make me pancakes. But I'm not holding my breath.

I'll be under the covers. Let me know when it's Saturday.