on july 1, one more year has ticked by.
i'm in the process of coordinating my celebratory festivities. making a guest list, compiling email addresses, building a menu, locating the necessary outdoor furniture and supplies, creating and sending an evite. feeling very euro planning my own birthday party, i realize i've never done this before. not plan a party or even plan a party for myself... but rather, i've never had a birthday party. don't worry, i'm not a recovering jehovah's witness; i'm allowed to dance and receive gifts in honor of my birth. rather, i'm a summertime baby.
i was born on a thursday. some people will tell you that this means something. and it probably does. i'm sure to my mother it meant that she would no longer have a small person inside her for the fireworks and barbecues of the coming weekend (and many more weekends for the next three years, until the y.b. would come along one very hot and sultry august). for my dad, it meant he didn't have to miss his softball tournament to watch some kid crawl out of a uterus. i'm certain it meant something to the nurses and doctors who were changing shifts just as i was arriving. and for me, well, considering that thursday marked the first day i "went out" into the world, it just might factor into thursdays being my favorite night to hit the town.
i was the only baby born that thursday in that hospital and the only boy born all week. my mother had a double occupancy room to herself. the hospital was quiet, and the air was heavy with summer warmth. next door, a woman had been in labor for almost 24 hours, but wouldn't give birth to kimberly until the wee small hours of the following evening. somewhere down the hall, another woman was waiting for her twin daughters to leave her belly. on july 6, emily would emerge followed very closely by sarah. this same pattern would hold true for most of their lives. sucking on ice chips, my mother awaited the arrival of contractions and the exhausting labor the woman next door made seem less-than-desirable. around noon, my mother finally went into labor some 7 hours after her water broke. by 4:30, i was born.
it's hard growing up with a birthday that competes with a national holiday. it's even harder when those birthdays fall during the long, lazy months of the illinois summer. it's hard to convince people that running around my backyard with sparklers is more worth their while than full-on fireworks displays over the lake. harder yet was getting people to stay in town to come over and eat a cake decorated with cartoon characters rather than fly off to visit family in exotic locations across the country. as a child, i would shake my fist in the air and curse the united states of america for being born on a day so closely situated to my own birthday. i used to plan on moving to mexico because its birthday was in may, and was slightly thankful that i didn't live in canada, a country actually born on my birthday. fucking canada.
even moreso, i hated having a summer birthday. i never got to bring cupcakes to school. every year, the teacher would promise that some week when we had no birthdays kids with summer birthdays would bring in treats to celebrate theirs... yet week after birthdayless week went by and the summer birthdays were never celebrated. i was bitter everytime a birthday invitation came in the mail or was handed out at school... though few they were. i hated the other kids for getting to have parties with magicians and clowns and pinatas and pony rides. the only year i attempted to have a birthday party, only my cousins showed up, sending me teary-eyed into the arms of my mother. i didn't even eat my birthday cake. after that, i stopped trying to celebrate my birthday.
the birthday party is a new experience for me. sure, in college, we'd go out for my birthday... it even became a pseudo-holiday involving bar crawls and t-shirts within the inner circle of my coworkers, but i still didn't have birthday parties. it's just not something i do -- correction: did -- and even now as i plan a party to recognize my twenty-third year, i find myself a little uneasy. the old nerves and anxieties are back. what if no one comes? everyone will be gone for the fourth. not even your cousins will show up to this one. so i got smart.
i moved my birthday. well, the celebration part anyway. now, i'll be competing with the queers instead of the u.s. of a. i may have stood a better chance with america. regardless, while it won't have pony rides and sure as fuck won't have a clown, it's going to be wonderful... and people will come. and i won't cry into my mother's hug. and they'll have a blast playing with sparklers in my backyard.
p.s. if you want to come to the party, drop me a note with your email address, and i'll send you the evite.
posted by brett @ 3:42 PM
5 Comments:
I was just glad not to get spanked and pinched all day.
that's why i'm having a bbq. baby steps. it can't really be called a party if there's a grill involved, right? and it starts at 4:30 in the afternoon... parties after the age of 21 always start no earlier than 8. i think i'm in the clear.
there will be sparklers, though...
I would love to come to your bbq, but I can't, so I won't. But if I could (and I can't) I would bring you something nice, but I won't, 'cause I can't....
CF
summer birthdays suck - me, july 13 - i always chose to celebrate my half birthday in school....
my half birthday (like my brother's on valentine's day) falls on another holiday. january 1 is new year's day and a no school day.
damn the luck.
Post a Comment
<< Home