A Very Merry

 Months ago, I picked up tickets for what I had wanted to do for my birthday.  Initially, it was supposed to be open well beforehand, but then as time crept forward, I noticed myself being more set on what normally happens, and didn't expect it to open.  I was sad, but tried to find a backup plan, and unfortunately couldn't find something.  

Then with Rabbit's leg and back, and him going out of work, I knew that most things we wouldn't be able to do.  However, where we had thought we only had a certain day, this meant we had more time if we did find something.  That's when I saw a message about the soft opening of where I had bought tickets for.  Rabbit offered to still go, but he could barely do ten minutes in the car, and the thing involved crawling and exploring.  I wanted the both of us to be able to run around and explore, so as much as he pushed, I told him that because the tickets were good for a year, we would have plenty of time.

So I told him to figure out some things that he thought he could do, that would get us out of the house.  With people moving, and things at home, we both needed some time away, and he wanted us to be able to celebrate.  When I asked him what he came up with later on, we started to settle on a plan to go to New Hope, but that was quickly squashed when we went to a park, and he could barely walk for five minutes without being done.

The morning of my birthday he kept pressing me for what I wanted to do that day.  He wouldn't give suggestions, but I looked at him in pain, constantly pressing me to tell him what I wanted to do.  It hit hard, and harder as his roommate who should have been prepping to move out decided to chime in as well.  I eventually went downstairs to put myself together, and wound up in tears, no longer able to fight off the trigger response.

Rabbit came in and saw me, and I intended to tell him everything, but as I saw him barely able to make it up the stairs, the tears came harder, and he held me.  We sat outside and I explained to him things that had happened previously.  I shared all the trauma, and all the things that caused the trigger to exist, and he understood.  Where he tried to just hop on and say that he would make plans from then on, I told him that he didn't have to, and that if I thought of anything I would tell him, but pushing like that, especially when he was in pain felt too much like so many things that had happened before.

It was hard, but we figured it out.  Then we went to breakfast at a tiny place around the corner he'd never gotten to try, ran some errands and got boba tea, and then just spent time together.  We went to dinner with his parents before having babka I had made, and it was quiet, but wound up being a decent birthday.

You'd think that would be it, but while having babka, his parent's handed me a card.  Inside of it was a larger gift than I had ever gotten from anyone, and it wasn't even that much.  When I told Rabbit about it on the way home, I told him that it was another thing that showed me how off my treatment has been, because as much as I knew it was wrong, I had normalized how I was treated compared to my siblings due to it being my only experience.

Realizing how much I've been through is hard, but I'm learning, and I have someone who genuinely shows me he cares every day.  That's a better gift than anything I could have asked for.