Given that I've never been a very punctual person, you'd probably think that I was late to my own birth, but strangely that wasn't the case. I wasn't due until mid-January of 1988, but instead I arrived early. The irony is, the one thing in my life that I was actually early for was the one thing I shouldn't have been early for. I say this because I picked the absolute worst day of the year to come into the world: December 31. Yep, I'm a New Year's Eve baby. Jokes about how I supposedly got my parents a last-minute tax refund in 1987 - they say I've cost them way more than that in the years since - aside, I gotta say that it just absolutely sucks that I have my birthday on New Year's Eve.
For one thing, it's way too close to Christmas. It doesn't matter quite as much now that I'm older, but when I was a kid, I'd get pretty much all my presents around Christmastime, or earlier, since my sister's birthday is the 20th and everyone would send out my birthday presents along with hers to save time. It certainly taught me a lesson in patience to wait that extra week after Christmas and avoid the temptation to open everything in one day, but it just sucked to have to wait almost an entire year before I got any presents.
On to the real reasons. First, no one's ever around to celebrate my birthday. I could never go out with my friends at school on my birthday, because we were all home for Christmas - oh, sorry, winter - break. On the plus side, I've never had to spend my birthday doing homework, but since I don't have a vehicle of my own, I end up spending birthday after birthday at home with my parents. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because I love my parents a lot, but it's my birthday, and I wanna live a little!
Now, any other day during the break would be a bad enough day to have a birthday, but December 31 (or December 25 or January 1, for that matter) is definitely the worst possible day of them all. Everyone's too busy getting ready to celebrate New Year's to even bother with my birthday. Family members almost always come out for my sister's birthday, but they've never came over for mine. They can't, really, because it's just too hard to travel on New Year's Eve. I've only had one actual birthday party in my life, for my 11th birthday, when I had a few of my friends over for the afternoon. What's even more frustrating is that so few of my so-called "friends" even bother to wish me a Happy Birthday. Like I said before, they're all too busy celebrating New Year's to notice that it's my birthday. How is it that out of over 700 friends that I have on Facebook, only about 8% of them wrote to wish me a Happy Birthday? Even some of my closest friends whom I've known for a long time forgot.
Okay, maybe I'm being a little bitter. I did get more posts on Facebook this year (55) than I did last year (40), many of my best friends did remember my birthday, and that girl from college that I had a secret crush on that I told y'all about before ("Real World", 19 May 2010) actually texted me to wish me a Happy Birthday, so it wasn't a total loss. It's just that I wish my birthday could be a little more exciting and not be just like any other day of my life. It sucks never having anyone around to celebrate my birthday with, but you know what? I think I'll just have a late celebration with my friends sometime after I get back to school next week. And hey, I'm alive and well, I'm still in grad school, and things are hopefully looking up for me this coming year. Maybe I should just count my blessings for once instead of always wishing things were better. After all, it is a new year.
Stay frosty, y'all! B-)
For one thing, it's way too close to Christmas. It doesn't matter quite as much now that I'm older, but when I was a kid, I'd get pretty much all my presents around Christmastime, or earlier, since my sister's birthday is the 20th and everyone would send out my birthday presents along with hers to save time. It certainly taught me a lesson in patience to wait that extra week after Christmas and avoid the temptation to open everything in one day, but it just sucked to have to wait almost an entire year before I got any presents.
On to the real reasons. First, no one's ever around to celebrate my birthday. I could never go out with my friends at school on my birthday, because we were all home for Christmas - oh, sorry, winter - break. On the plus side, I've never had to spend my birthday doing homework, but since I don't have a vehicle of my own, I end up spending birthday after birthday at home with my parents. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because I love my parents a lot, but it's my birthday, and I wanna live a little!
Now, any other day during the break would be a bad enough day to have a birthday, but December 31 (or December 25 or January 1, for that matter) is definitely the worst possible day of them all. Everyone's too busy getting ready to celebrate New Year's to even bother with my birthday. Family members almost always come out for my sister's birthday, but they've never came over for mine. They can't, really, because it's just too hard to travel on New Year's Eve. I've only had one actual birthday party in my life, for my 11th birthday, when I had a few of my friends over for the afternoon. What's even more frustrating is that so few of my so-called "friends" even bother to wish me a Happy Birthday. Like I said before, they're all too busy celebrating New Year's to notice that it's my birthday. How is it that out of over 700 friends that I have on Facebook, only about 8% of them wrote to wish me a Happy Birthday? Even some of my closest friends whom I've known for a long time forgot.
Okay, maybe I'm being a little bitter. I did get more posts on Facebook this year (55) than I did last year (40), many of my best friends did remember my birthday, and that girl from college that I had a secret crush on that I told y'all about before ("Real World", 19 May 2010) actually texted me to wish me a Happy Birthday, so it wasn't a total loss. It's just that I wish my birthday could be a little more exciting and not be just like any other day of my life. It sucks never having anyone around to celebrate my birthday with, but you know what? I think I'll just have a late celebration with my friends sometime after I get back to school next week. And hey, I'm alive and well, I'm still in grad school, and things are hopefully looking up for me this coming year. Maybe I should just count my blessings for once instead of always wishing things were better. After all, it is a new year.
Stay frosty, y'all! B-)
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