#59 It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to

Today is my birthday. The first one without Eric since I turned 2. That little interloper came, and stayed and wrecked the perfect life I had going on. I even asked my Mom when he was going home, but never really got a satisfactory answer.

We used to have to lock my closet doors because he would get in there and open up my games and throw the pieces all over my room.

In my memory he had the bigger room in the house where we lived when he was born, but my Mom assures me this isn’t true. We moved when I was 4, so I guess I’ll just have to trust her.

He continued to mess things up for me after we moved too. There was another child my age who lived behind our house and he and Eric never could get along. My Mom always made me take Eric’s side of the argument.

He used to try and follow me when I would leave to walk to school and once again got all of Mom’s attention as she barricaded him into the house. Although it was kind of cool that he wanted to be like me.

As we grew he would make fun of my hair and my outfits and my attitude. He had no respect for the teenage girl that I had become and he made no effort to hide it.

When it came time for me to look at colleges he complained that all of the dinner conversation was about me and insisted on sharing his day as well.

Finally when I stretched the geographical limits my parents imposed on me by going to college in Chicago, he got to move to Bangkok with them to finish high school.

He lived in places too exotic and far away to visit. He showered my kids with inappropriately huge and sugary gifts. He called me every Friday afternoon at 3:00 as if maybe that day I wouldn’t be working then.

Then he left me.

And it’s wrecking my life.