So in just a couple short weeks, I"ll have yet another birthday.
Year 21. You'd think that I'd have some wild, crazy night planned,
complete with barhopping, birthday shots and obnoxiously
drunk friends. It almost seems a sacrilege that I'm looking
forward to buying a bottle of wine, a pack of smokes and spending
the evening at home - alone.
I suppose if I was invited out, I would probably go, but these days, I'm the only one
not yet married with children. I'm the only one with the freedom
to come and go as I please, to spend countless bar-time
calls praying to the porcelain goddess in my bathroom or that of the tavern I happen to have fallen ill in.
I'm also probably the only one that doesn't CARE about that freedom.
I'm equally as happy, spending a quiet evening in my apartment, smoking a cigarette,
watching the sun fade into the horizon and contemplating
my mortality.
I was sick the day I turned 20. My new fiance had just arrived from Connecticut
and we had planned to spend the night at a local hotel in one of the jacuzzi rooms.
We ended up staying home. I think we ordered pizza and watched a movie.
When my 19th rolled around, I had been engaged to my first fiance for a year. We'd
moved south when I started college, and had returned home only days before my birthday.
Things weren't going well between us; there had been some instances of physical abuse and I thought
that by moving back to where we started our relationship, it would help rekindle what we had in the beginning.
At 7:00 a.m. I was wide awake, waiting for him to come home from work. He showed up with a dozen roses
and a card. The card read something about a dog pissing on my birthday cake. He signed it "your lover".
Year 18 was speant eating a steak dinner my soon to be fiance (or should I say 'my lover') cooked. It was,
and is, probably the best of all the birthdays I have ever had. At that point, things were genuine between us.
And I have never looked back on that day and wished I would have spent it any other way.
So maybe I don't want to spend this birthday alone. I certainly don't want to have the wild parties
that I had during my high school years....
I do want to share my birthday with someone. I want to share all of my experiences with someone.
I want to be swept off my feet. I want to feel passion and desire. I want to be needed. And loved.
Of course, that only happens in the movies
and I'm no Julia Roberts.
Hell, I'll be suprised if anyone even remembers me this year.
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