2007-04-28
Let this be my last birthday
Some things haven't changed. Like how the only CD I put on when I'm feeling blue remains The Calling's debut album, for reasons I still can't fathom.
But some things have. Like how the birthday presents my parents buy me have grown from a single blue mechanical pencil to Phantom of the Opera tickets, flanked by a designer bag and expensive cake. Like how they used to wake me up on my birthday with a big hug, and bring out a lighted cake from the kitchen, singing Happy Birthday at the top of their voice, to a hastily sent text message after I leave for school, and me clearing the dining table so I can take out my own birthday cake and plead them to come sit around. While everyone snapped at each other.
And when involuntary tears drowned the candles I couldn't light, they all walked away.
I don't know how many days it's been since I actually turned eighteen, but I haven't blown out a candle. Now these niceties seem so perfunctory, so meaningless, so empty.
The camera you took out today, like you always do every time someone has a birthday won't document my freshly eighteen face, daddy. The moment came and went nearly eighty hours ago. I didn't mind waiting for your birthday wishes. But I don't want my wait to be finally received by a tired, obliged lens. I distinctly remember wishing for my family to be happy when the dancing flames on my cake numbered seventeen. This year, I have no more birthday wishes.
nothing ever happens at 6:42 p.m.