SIMPLY ELABORATE blog

Archive for the ‘emotional’ Category

My birthday is in five days and I didn’t even realize how soon that was until this past weekend where it was like, “wow, is today Friday? That means next Friday is my birthday.” And now it’s Sunday night, or should I say Monday morning and it’s only five days away.

I’m never sure what the response is when someone asks “what do you want for your birthday?” I don’t know. What do I need? Nothing. Nothing that anyone can ever buy me. I’ve never really had a birthday where I’ve had a successful birthday party and grouped together enough people to even call it that. I’ve always been afraid that I’ll plan this unbelievably amazing shindig and nobody shows up. Scary. It’s never happened to me, and I don’t think it ever would should I ever choose to plan something, but I think the point of it is that I won’t let it happen.

Birthdays can be filled with so much pleasure, but they can also cause so much pain. I never understood why people created the time-honoured tradition of pretending that everyone forgets your birthday with a surprise party at the end of the day to make you feel like an idiot for thinking everyone forgot about you. Sure, there’s that big surprise at the end of the day, but what a day wasted thinking that you’re invisible and mean nothing to your friends and family.

I actually hate the time of year around my birthday; it just reminds me of all the time I’ve wasted in my life not doing anything. Well, that’s not true really. I like to pretend that one of these days I’m going to wake up and know my future, like just know it. I’ll know that everything I’m working towards actually means something. I’m going to find my Prince Charming and live happily ever after with a career, house, kids, cats, maybe a dog, all the while not having a care in the world once October 1st comes along because I’m such a happy go-lucky person.

I like contradicting myself. It’s fun. I was talking to Eddy last night while he got me to try and guess what he and S are getting me for my birthday and I was actually surprised that they’re getting me anything at all. Because that’s what I’ve grown up with, don’t expect such things from others – which I still go by. I don’t expect gifts from anyone; just maybe some recognition that someone remembers my birthday is good enough for me.

Because there’s nothing worse than going through a whole day with nobody acknowledging a birthday, while subconsciously your mind thinks maybe it’s a ploy and there’s a party for me tonight only to find out that, in fact, there isn’t. And everybody just forgot.

Leave it to me to make a birthday depressive

It’s a beautiful day outside and I have three days left out of my first year of university. I went shopping yesterday and still have all the bags lying around behind me sprawled across my bed and floor. I haven’t removed them from the bags because I’ll just be repacking them shortly anyway.
I was the first person to start packing almost four weeks ago with everyone asking why I was starting so soon. And now, everyone else around me has pretty much cleared their rooms and I’m left sitting here in a mess of half-packed clothes and dirty dishes I don’t want to wash.

It’s weird. I’ve been waiting for this day since the weather turned bad in January. Wishing to get out of here and start my summer. And now that it’s here, I find myself torn between familiarity and tradition. It’s like I’m going back to tradition and discarding the familiar. I’m used to living by myself now, in a single room with everything that I do being totally up to me and no one else. Now I’m going back to living with my parents and back to being frustrated that I’m going to actually have to be home at a certain time.
It just gets me thinking about how much things have changed over this past school year. Almost everything they tell you in university prep books and seminars and pamphlets were true. But those same info packets neglected to mention the most important things. They forgot to say that some of the people you meet will remind you of someone you knew in the past, and some of them will remain in your life far into the future. And how the only way people are going to listen to you is if you stand up for yourself and go after what you want. The fact that “nobody stays friends with anyone from high school” is a completely bogus analogy and if it’s true for you, then they really weren’t your friends to begin with.

This past year, choosing to pursue my education was probably the best decision I ever made. Not only because of the obvious benefits for my career, but for the benefits for my life. I’ve learned that the most memorable nights are usually the ones that start off innocently; you can never really move on unless you let go of the past; it’s okay to ask for help, and greatly appreciated when you give it; you can’t trust everyone, no matter how much you want to; it’s those who come and visit you even though you are extremely contagious that are truly your friends; you will always wish that something turned out differently; you’ll realize, for the first time, what it means to miss someone or something; and you’ll see that you really have changed.

This past week, everyone has done something the way they’ve always done it but ended it with a sniff and the sentence “this is the last time we’re going to be doing this”. And I’ll roll my eyes and fake whine with the rest of them, but I guess it’s true. It’s like the ending of high school again. Sure, we’re coming back next year to continue school, but we’re not living here anymore. And not many of us are living together. It’s over – all of it.

This time, we’re actually going to have to grow up. Living in residence wasn’t actually much more than a bunch of teenagers hanging out without parental supervision 24/7. But now, as most of us here are living on our own next year, we have to figure out who to call to get a phone line hooked up, cable installed, internet split up, heating turned on, hydro tracked – they did that all for us here. When we didn’t have heat, we complained to someone who complained to someone else until someone came to fix it. There was always still someone else there when something went wrong. Now, it’s just us. We have to figure everything out when it goes wrong and no one else. I find that kind of scary – but completely liberating at the same time.

It’s weird; for the first time in my whole life, I get to say I start my summer vacation in April. Life is good.