birthdays
be careful what you wish for
The boy never liked his birthdays. There was too much attention on him, too many people around him, too many expectations of him and of the occasion. It wasn’t even his own. Not entirely.
There is a special kind grudge that grows in person that has to share a birthday with another family member. Even if it’s just your cousin that you are seeing less and less every year.
But still, it feels contaminated. The one day that was all about you, that was supposed to make you feel special, is then stolen and shared with someone else. The boy wondered if that is how people born on Christmas must have felt. It seemed more a curse than a miracle.
So the boy grew up resistant to the usual excitement that permeates a household before a kid’s birthday. The boy didn’t feel special, not even on this day. He would be 18 this year.
The boy would be a minor for only few more months. The boy doesn’t know how to be an adult! He was a kid his entire life. A life that he hadn’t lived to his fullest. That too was partially his fault. He tried to convince himself that he had no regrets, but he was again lying to himself.
The day arrives. It was raining. The boy, who was still a boy and not a man, gets up as every day before and steps out of his house for the first time as an adult. There is no sudden clarity nor new doors open. His problems of yesterday are still problems of today. The boy wonders for how long he would have to do this. He does not like the answer, and wonders if his cousin is perhaps asking himself the same question
The boy gets his best wishes along with gifts, most of the kind that you give to someone you don’t really know: a book, a mug, some socks… Things that you will inevitably receive the next year as well. A friend of his forgot about it and bought him some trinket from the nearest store during lunchbreak at school. What a joke.
The boy couldn’t begrudge them entirely. They didn’t know him, but that wasn’t entirely their fault. The boy made it look easy when it came to pushing people away. How do you get to know someone like that, someone like the boy?
Perhaps if his parents would talk to him beyond things like “How was school?” and “You should get a haircut”, they would actually get to know their own son. But, once more, the boy had to be fair. They boy didn’t really know himself that well either. No wonder it was difficult to answer that big question “what do you wish for your birthday?”.
So, how was he supposed to tell them that what he wanted was not something they could give him: Someone to listen to him. Someone who would understand him. Not a loved one, but someone who he could trust unconditionally and they would return this trust too. Already back then this seemed to have been too much to ask.
And so the boy would continue to keep his wishes locked inside and carry them into adulthood, like old memories he would have preferred to let go. The boy was still a boy, even if not so in the eyes of the world. The boy was not a man either. He felt no less a child - alone and afraid… No different than a day ago, when everything was different.
But nothing really was.