Happy B-Day to Me -- The Aftermath

Hey There:
I've been debating all day about what to write, if I should write anything at all, but since I already mentioned some of my previous birthdays and my expectations for this one, I thought it would be a good wrap-up on the subject.
Since the actual day was on a Monday, I considered it my b-day weekend. I had lots of cool things happen, like finally giving the finishing touches to the front rooms of my apartment and considering them done! Getting a $50 Sephora Gift Certificate (Thanks StyleBust!!), buying me cool things like a graphic novel I intend to review and submit for a new website called Comic Book Snob, if I get on their staff I can have a press pass for Comic-Con plus free Graphic Novels!
I went to a metal concert and had great fun with my friends, went drinking, had great food, have plans to meet up with friends later in the week and on the actual day received well wishes from over a hundred people via text, e-mails, facebook posts and phone calls....yet I saw nobody in person on Monday.
My need for isolation started on Sunday when my Mom called to tell me the story of my birth. It's a tradition that my sister started when she was a little girl: a day before her b-day she would begin asking at what time my Mom went into the hospital, when did her pains begin, when did the water break, etc...and it was the same story every year....and now she tells my brother and me about our births...which at first I resisted (anything that has to do with child birth makes me cringe) but now I just let her tell me all about it, to a point of course.
On Monday morning my cat woke me up at 6:30 to demand food and I didn't go back to sleep. I walked to the post office, got a coffee, had an early breakfast and put on make-up since I planned to be on Skype to talk to my overseas friends. I was relaxing reading a book called "Minding Frankie" by Maeve Binchy where Frankie is a newborn baby girl when I got to a part in the book where one of the characters dies from cancer, and you read about the grief and funeral...so that brought back memories from my Dad's passing two years ago. So I spent the rest of the morning weeping.
I had finally calmed down when my Mom's first e-mail ever arrived, which was very touching, so that got me weeping all over again and the damage was done....my eyes looked awful from the lack of sleep and all the crying, my nose was red and my complexion didn't improve the rest of the day.
I decided to remain at home, just communicating to the outside world electronically. Eventually I needed to get to the grocery store and was about to leave in my sweats when I looked in the mirror and saw how tired and old I looked. So I put on a dress, boots, re-applied the make-up so I would look decent enough to go buy milk, chicken and tomatoes. I may be getting older, but that only means my standards are getting higher!
Not my best b-day, but not my worst. I counted the hours for midnight to arrive and now it's no longer my special day...Yay!!!