happy birthday soon

I have been healing a lot of my past selves this year. It feels like year 28 brought me full circle. So many feelings have resurfaced and I am here again to tell you about it. As of typing this, I am 5 days shy of turning 29. I will be 29 years old. I am newly married. I have been living outside and away from my family for 4 years now. And yet, my father continues to drag an old childhood memory from the depths of summer for my birthday. Throughout my entire life so far, my father frequently brings attention to the fact that he "was not perfect". Perfection isn't real though, so who is he really reminding? Needless to say, he has centered his entire personality around his perception of being a father and a martyr. Why am I even spending my time and energy on this? My father has worked at the same company for the past 28 years. He always took his three weeks of vacation in the summertime. One week in June, the week after Father's Day. One week in July, the week of my birthday. The last week in August, after an annual festival we went to as a family tradition. He had done this for so many years, I thought I could count on its stability. Well, one year when I was turning 8 or 9, he decided to take a week of vacation in April for his birthday. When I learned which week of vacation was being swapped for April, I was devastated. My father had taken the week off leading up to my birthday for years, but that year he chose to take his birthday week instead. I want to clarify that I was a kid dealing with and processing abuse and trauma without any support, so this major change felt so heavy. Of course I felt compelled to ask him why he chose July's week of vacation instead of June's or August's. It was his response that left me feeling hollow. At first he said that it was because he wanted to take his birthday week off for a change of pace. Okay. Then it was because July was the middle month of summer. Shouldn't I be grateful that my dad chose to take a week off in the beginning of summer and the end of summer? Sure, I guess. Those reasons made sense, but they would make more sense if my birthday was not involved. So I asked him again, why did July have to go? Why did my birthday week have to go? He said that he chose my birthday week because it had nothing to do with him. He didn't want to swap June's vacation, because Father's Day was about him. He didn't want to swap August's vacation, because the festival we attended was his favorite part of summer. July's vacation had nothing to do with him, so he thought it would be okay to skip that vacation that year and in the future to instead celebrate his birthday week. He would preach to strangers that being a father was the best thing about his life; he loved his kids more than life itself; he would do anything and everything to celebrate us. I was devastated that he did not/could not/would not understand why it made me upset that he wasn't going to be spending my birthday week with me. 20 years later I'm an adult. I'm 5 days shy of turning 29. I'm newly married. I have been living away from my family for 4 years. And yet, every year of my adult life, my father makes sure to bring attention to the fact that he is taking his vacation the week of my birthday. He has not spent a fucking birthday week with me for the past 10 years. Every year that he highlights that he still does this tradition only reminds me of when he chose not to because it had nothing to do with him. He has not once acknowledged my feelings over that choice, but he will be damned if he does not tell every living soul that he still takes vacation on his daughter's birthday week. I have been carrying this grief for too long, so finally being able to express it feels like relief.