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i remember this one time when i was a kid i got really sick at christmas time and i had to miss a lot of school. it was summer obviously so my mum was outside in the crops from sun up to sun down and i was left mostly to my own devices. she had this hiding spot in her closet that i think she thought we didn't know about? it was sort of like, you had to go into it and then turn around and there was this shelf that you couldn't see because of the way the wood was cut, but you could reach up and feel? i don't know it was weird but she would always hide unwrapped presents up there and i remember one day feeling well enough to go through them. for some reason i decided that the best gift in the entire bunch was this magic 8 ball so i took it down to the couch and wrapped myself in my 50 blankets and played with it for the entire day before putting it back when it started to get late. i'm pretty sure nobody ever knew it happened. i remember that christmas day in less than fragmented bits and pieces, and i remember that the 8ball was for gen so i never really got to play with it again, but what i don't remember is basically anything else. what did i get? i have no fucking idea. was my christmas ruined because i didn't get the present i wanted? i don't remember at all. maybe it was a great christmas. maybe it was the year i got the doodle bear that i drew on like 500 times before it got lost. maybe it was the worst christmas of my life.
that christmas reminds me of you in a way because the point is that actual christmas didn't matter. you worry about our anniversary and things overshadowing my birthday, but it's kind of like that 8ball in the way that when you say "how was your christmas when you were x age" i get to say "i had the best day sneaking through presents and playing with this 8ball all day" because like, i was sick, and it wasn't even for me, so there were negatives way bigger than that, but i don't remember them. if you ask me how my birthday was in 2016 for the rest of my life i'm just going to remember that we got married and we went to the maldives. that stuff will never be not getting the 8ball for christmas, it will be the day i spent playing with it. every anniversary, every vacation, is going to be that day for me. there could never be a time i see that as overshadowing anything, not in the bigger picture future memory of it at least.