My Birthday

So, we begin the countdown until my birthday...ten days to go...

The only problem? I hate--okay, "strongly dislike"--my birthday! Every year, after I celebrate, I feel like I didn't celebrate enough, or I celebrated the wrong way, or I celebrated the right way for once and now it's over, and then I feel extremely selfish and undeserving and I sink into that deep dark oppressing emotional state called depression.

I have Birthdayphobia. No, seriously.

Before my birthday, I'm constantly struggling with the selfish want for gifts and the guilt for asking for so much when others have absolutely nothing. I want a birthday party, but my friends are few and far in between, of various age groups and clashing personalities, and very few of whom I refer to or trust enough to consider a close friend.

And now that I'm well into the teenage years, it's not like my parents invite the small group over for another episode of "Kids Gone Wild" (and by this I mean mainly the boys, who preferred to spend the majority of the time of MY BIRTHDAY PARTY tossing a football around my living room, too close for comfort since that's where my father's PRICELESS CHINA CABINET, FILLED WITH PORCELAIN FIGURINES, RESIDES).

So what to do? Being homeschooled, it's not like I can invite my entire class over for pizza and Seven Minutes Locked in my Closet, The Dumbest Game Ever Invented and Actually Played By Fellow Teenage Homo Sapiens.
Nor can I invite them to the local Forensic Medical Center, which I happen to want to tour.
Or invite them to play Apples to Apples at my dining room table.
Since my first high school party included loud music, dancing, louder music, more dancing, food, and being abandoned in the middle of the dance floor by my partner Skaterboy (see blog Sweet Single Sixteen), and it was "bangin'" which board games are definitely not.
Not that I've ever cared whether or not I was ever "bangin'", but whatever.
The best idea I can come up with is having my long-time friend spend the night, or hosting a double-feature movie night.
See? What does that tell you? I have no life whatsoever. (A fact which, I am proud to inform you, doesn't bother me as much as it should).

And I have the irrational fear that no one will remember my birthday, and then I'll be all alone. Don't ask me why. My family has always showered me with love on my DOB, but still. They're required to. It's everyone else I'm worried about. But the funny thing is, I refuse to advertise my oncoming day of supposed celebration (or Doom, Demise, and Depression).
Except what I'm writing on my blog, I've told no one about my approaching birthday, excluding one friend who was born only six days before myself.

And, besides the previous listed cons of the date of my birth, there's more.

People like to ask me why I wear a lot of black. I don't fall into a specific label, mind you, but I will wear anything black.
And my most common answer?
"Um, because it's my favorite color."
The real reason? I'm mourning my lost childhood.
No, seriously.
Every year, at my birthday, it's like dropping a piece of myself in the grave and kicking dirt over it.
I mean, come on, people. I'm a teenager. I shouldn't feel like this until I'm at least, you know, eighty-five. Or eighty-six, at least.

Oh, and by the way, lately I've been considering getting an emo haircut ; )

Happy Birthday, Everybody!

xoxo,

Queen Alyssa