Happy birthday to myself
I fear of my own birthday. I hope that particular day will disappear once and for all, or if not, it should have fallen to the last day of February – the twenty ninth day, and then it will only appear in the leap year. If it only happens in leap years, then my birthday will not be happening for three quarters of my life, or more, so I will have fewer things to worry about, like a warehouse sales giving unbelievable discount. That is very weird of you, a friend commented at me after I told him about the story of purposeful made to forget birthday. I never elaborated too much to him, because I didn’t understand it too much myself either. I realized that you have to be simple minded person to take it as an ordinary thing and accept it like it always happens to our everyday life, like you don’t know about one thing so you just accept it as it is. I just hate the day, or merely I just afraid of it. It is not I don’t want to grow up or I don’t want to get old. It’s like a black hole and it overwhelms me as it approaches.
“My friend’s birthday dinner on Saturday night” She replied to the inquiry of another guy friend of mine. There were three of us walking down the street of crowded china town.
“But you have whole day free to yourself right? We can use that free time to meet up somewhere for a drink or two, or maybe a movie?” My guy friend persuaded. I watched them walking side by side, while I walked behind them like a hollow man, becoming invisible to them. The guy friend was trying to persuade my girl friend for a date, but either my girl friend was not interested or she really needed to do something before her friend’s birthday on Saturday night.
“Not really free. I need to choose a present for my friend. And I need to buy my dress for the dinner. I need to get my high heels also. I can get so busy you see.” She said, now sounding a bit annoyed.
“Oh, I can accompany you for that. We can choose the present to your friend, and I have got good taste in girls’ clothing, I might be able to give you some opinion.” He said, oblivious to her hint of annoyance, looking at my girl friend in smiling eyes, like toothpaste commercial.
“Whatever” She gave up and shot me a sharp look as she turns back to where I was. In response, I gave her a look of I-am-sorry with both my hands held up at my chest level.
That was sort of the little conversation that reminded me my phobia of birthday. First of all, it started to occur to me that I don’t have too many ‘friends’ birthday’ to begin with. It never bothered me that much back then, but it has started to make a mark for a drill to bore in. It could be painful sometime, but sometime not. I wonder when was the last time I had a ‘friend’s birthday’. I seriously don’t remember any of it, or simply it was too long ago that I have forgotten. Or I just didn’t have any of it. Or the ‘friend’s birthday’ was organized by some friend that is not considered as my direct friend but friend of a direct friend. They don’t invite me out of their memory of me as their friend, but out of kindness knowing I was friend of my friend. Sound complicated eh? Indirect friend, I think I have quite a number of them. They just come into your life, get very close to you because there might be some similarities, in this case, it might be work related or because of a direct friend, but once this similarity no longer exists, say I have quitted the job or I haven’t seen my direct friend for a long time. Then they leave for good. Not to say leave, but there is no point of connection anymore. Very soon, their birthday list will not have my name.
‘Friend’s birthday’, the words certainly remind me of quantity of friend I have in my life. The last result I counted the number of 'friend’s birthday' was zero or nearly zero – my memory wasn’t recalling any of them then. It was really bad. It is like Bingo! And then the game announcer will say, “Yes, you have got it right, you don’t have any friend!” Once another friend told me that, what is importance is quality of friend but not quantity. Yes, I agreed with this friend, but how long this word will hold true before she leaves, by that time, even the most meaningful word vaporizes and disappears into meaningless, the words depart together as they disappear from your life. Yet, in this materialistic world, mere quality doesn’t count much and it has to be something visible and tangible for it to be counted. But I’m not ready to fall into that just yet and I’m still pretty much of myself.
And the outcome of ‘Friend’s birthday’ does come back to me, in a cause and effect. Something like; because of this cause arises and so this effect happens. You don’t have friend, another friend was reminding me, more like criticizing to me and it always echoed in my mind. So no one will celebrate it with me. Realizing this fact, someone with authority might as well take this day off for it will be obsolete before too long. That pretty much explains my favorite term ‘Absence of my birthday’ which is another shorter phrase for the purposeful made to forget birthday line I used previously. Who knows, one day I might be able to get rid of these mental difficulties or you could call it psychological obstacles or simply, phobia, whatever. Then I will be able to sing to myself happily the song, Happy Birthday to myself.
“My friend’s birthday dinner on Saturday night” She replied to the inquiry of another guy friend of mine. There were three of us walking down the street of crowded china town.
“But you have whole day free to yourself right? We can use that free time to meet up somewhere for a drink or two, or maybe a movie?” My guy friend persuaded. I watched them walking side by side, while I walked behind them like a hollow man, becoming invisible to them. The guy friend was trying to persuade my girl friend for a date, but either my girl friend was not interested or she really needed to do something before her friend’s birthday on Saturday night.
“Not really free. I need to choose a present for my friend. And I need to buy my dress for the dinner. I need to get my high heels also. I can get so busy you see.” She said, now sounding a bit annoyed.
“Oh, I can accompany you for that. We can choose the present to your friend, and I have got good taste in girls’ clothing, I might be able to give you some opinion.” He said, oblivious to her hint of annoyance, looking at my girl friend in smiling eyes, like toothpaste commercial.
“Whatever” She gave up and shot me a sharp look as she turns back to where I was. In response, I gave her a look of I-am-sorry with both my hands held up at my chest level.
That was sort of the little conversation that reminded me my phobia of birthday. First of all, it started to occur to me that I don’t have too many ‘friends’ birthday’ to begin with. It never bothered me that much back then, but it has started to make a mark for a drill to bore in. It could be painful sometime, but sometime not. I wonder when was the last time I had a ‘friend’s birthday’. I seriously don’t remember any of it, or simply it was too long ago that I have forgotten. Or I just didn’t have any of it. Or the ‘friend’s birthday’ was organized by some friend that is not considered as my direct friend but friend of a direct friend. They don’t invite me out of their memory of me as their friend, but out of kindness knowing I was friend of my friend. Sound complicated eh? Indirect friend, I think I have quite a number of them. They just come into your life, get very close to you because there might be some similarities, in this case, it might be work related or because of a direct friend, but once this similarity no longer exists, say I have quitted the job or I haven’t seen my direct friend for a long time. Then they leave for good. Not to say leave, but there is no point of connection anymore. Very soon, their birthday list will not have my name.
‘Friend’s birthday’, the words certainly remind me of quantity of friend I have in my life. The last result I counted the number of 'friend’s birthday' was zero or nearly zero – my memory wasn’t recalling any of them then. It was really bad. It is like Bingo! And then the game announcer will say, “Yes, you have got it right, you don’t have any friend!” Once another friend told me that, what is importance is quality of friend but not quantity. Yes, I agreed with this friend, but how long this word will hold true before she leaves, by that time, even the most meaningful word vaporizes and disappears into meaningless, the words depart together as they disappear from your life. Yet, in this materialistic world, mere quality doesn’t count much and it has to be something visible and tangible for it to be counted. But I’m not ready to fall into that just yet and I’m still pretty much of myself.
And the outcome of ‘Friend’s birthday’ does come back to me, in a cause and effect. Something like; because of this cause arises and so this effect happens. You don’t have friend, another friend was reminding me, more like criticizing to me and it always echoed in my mind. So no one will celebrate it with me. Realizing this fact, someone with authority might as well take this day off for it will be obsolete before too long. That pretty much explains my favorite term ‘Absence of my birthday’ which is another shorter phrase for the purposeful made to forget birthday line I used previously. Who knows, one day I might be able to get rid of these mental difficulties or you could call it psychological obstacles or simply, phobia, whatever. Then I will be able to sing to myself happily the song, Happy Birthday to myself.
Comments
Happy birthday to you