Hi VV, Good to see you posting some of your thoughts again...I think it benefits a lot of others to read your words - and to see how you've moved forward in such a healthy, positive way.
Your post summarizes what, in many respects, is one of the secrets to finding oneself: the ability to acknowledge your feelings and let them go. It's something we've talked about before in your thread - and in mine - and it's something that a lot of others here have discovered as well...that there's real truth to the power we see in children to feel what's troubling them, cry, let it go...and get on with their lives. It's a survival technique we're born with - but it's a capacity we lose as we start to develop more and more of the kind of "fix it" personality that brings a lot of us here...
My birthday was last week as well...turned 39...and I had wondered what it would be like. My STBX dropped the bomb on my birthday last year - and so I wondered how it would go this year...and I was fine...didn't miss her, didn't long to have her around...rather, I welcomed the freedom to make the day my own on my terms - and not feel so vulnerable to someone that often seemed determined to make me feel like my birthday just wasn't important to her....I celebrated it beautifully with my boys - at a friend's house with his wife and son.
It's wonderful to hear how calm and strong you sound.
