I have always loved having an October birthday. A sort of kinship between the autumn and I has always been relevant, and I suppose that has something to do with the fact that I was born right in the thick of it.
All this being said, the older I get, the more I reflect on what's been going on in this all too short life of mine. How far I've gotten, and how far I have yet to go are a couple of the biggies; nineteen years riddled with youth and stupidity are enough to keep anybody wondering what the hell has been going on.
As I was contemplating all of this, I thought to myself 'this feels like some great blog material' ('cause I actually do think of things in blog-worthy categories; you ought to see what I mentally edit out of this blog... you know, the stuff my minimal number of readers never actually see [and by minimal, I mean my mother and sister... HI, GUYS!])
At first, I was a little iffy on the whole project; if ever I'm questioning possible blog material, I'll usually write the post out in Wordpad and mull it over for a couple of days before deciding whether or not to make it public. (Personal blog rule number one: if it goes on the blog, it stays on the blog. No revoking allowed!) So, I did, in fact, write the bulk of this post (excluding this drivel you're currently reading) the night before said birthday. Then, I started the mulling process.
'It's too personal; you'd be a damn fool to put something like this on your blog... on your irreverent, sloppy, dunderheaded, malarkey-filled blog. Scrap it.'
And then, I had an epiphany.
None of the eyes that are going to read this (all three pair of them) will have any bloody idea what I'm talking about. After reading it over, I noticed that it was written in a way that no one but myself and my two best friends would or could ever decode.
That was when I decided that this was just fine; hell, it won't make sense to most of you folk, so I could actually be posting just about anything in there.
So, without further ado, here's a letter to myself.
Dear Me,
It's the day before your nineteenth birthday. Yes, I know, this is a ridiculous exercise; but since when did the level of rationale dictate whether you did something or not?
If we're thinking logically for a moment here, the blog post you're writing in your mind would actually be better suited for this time next year. We both know that isn't going to happen, because when you get an idea in your head, patience wears thin, like paper socks in pleather shoes.
Take a look back at the last six birthdays, Sonny Jim; everyone made such a huge fuss about that thirteenth birthday! You were none too pleased, either. If you recall, there was something that day (though the catalyst escapes me at this moment) that just plain made you angry. That Big Girl portion of your brain that still dominates your actions rationalized that it was, in fact, stupid of you; to overcome that anger, because people loved you, and wanted to make you happy, and to forget whatever it was that switched your big girl panties for your sad britches. Did it stop you? No. But both parts of you knew that the Big Girl was right.
That fourteenth birthday saw the beginnings of something great, and you felt it on the horizon. Something was about to happen, something exciting and wonderful. At the time, you didn't know just how soon it would happen, but you were almost there; it was coming, and you were trying to prepare for it.
That same time the next year, much had changed, just as we expected. Yes, fifteen was to be a heady year. That fifteenth birthday was quite the transitional period; almost what you expected should have happened two years before. You were so lost in the neon and combustion that the Big Girl had to take a back seat while you were a damn fool. Luckily, you were not alone, and didn't injure yourself too badly in the end. Oh, but by that fifteenth birthday, your reasoning had been so totally screwed up, as Older You looks back on it, She wonders what the bloody hell was going ON in that brain of yours.
Birthday sixteen was like the come-down off your first acid trip. You weren't ready for anything that happened that year. That's when you started to shift viewpoints; it was not a pretty sight, though nothing compared to birthday number seventeen... you remember, the year that kicked your ass. Oh, joy of joys, the pit just got deeper! Sure, the all-night writing binges seemed cathartic at the time, but what was going ON with that brain, I still don't know (three clues, sugar? PEB, WAB, PGD? Oh, and why did you pick the 'A'? Did you really think that was wise?). Where was it, and why did you refuse to let the Big Girl take the wheel?
Last year, eighteen, was the birthday of fallacy. Sure, it was the best actual celebration of your birth; your favorite, if we're telling the truth. It was a glorious day; your mind frame going into that year, though, was off, like sour milk. That stumble a few years back was still tripping you, and you knew it. But you were this close to fixing it, once and for all.
And now, here you are, about to begin the nineteenth year of your life. So young and stupid, it's almost cute.
The attitude is finally right this year. All of the ingredients are there this time; something just finally feels proper about it. Almost what you would expect on the night before your eighteenth birthday, but you're going at your own pace, and that's a better fit for you right now.
Just a couple of things to remember; don't rush, take your time, and just enjoy living. Don't let anything get you down, because you don't deserve it. Just continue to be your psychotic little self, and it will be more than enough for the present and future. Don't forget who your friends are; the people that have been there these last six years are the ones you know you can count on, thick and thin... what lacks in quantity excels in quality, and that's what they are.
Also, it's OK to feel safe in your warm little pouch of routine, and it's more than fine to wrap yourself in that cacophony of sounds and patchwork of color to which you have become so comfortably accustomed. It goes back to that don't rush thing. Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans, remember? (That one pulled you out of a tight spot once, so don't you dare forget it.)
Now that we've got all that out of the way, let's just say what we're both really thinking right now...
what the hell just happened here?
The rear view says that those supposedly "formative" years are almost behind you, and the "twenty-somethings" off-ramp, taking you to even worse stumbles and oddities, is coming up in about a mile.
Well, maybe they're right about something; those formative years certainly did form something inside that little thinkhatch. You've got one more left, kid, so use it wisely. This time next year, you may be a totally different person (though we both know you're too stubborn to actually change much, since, you know, you haven't since you were about seven), or you may be just as bumbling and clueless. Regardless, you've already noticed that the pace has picked up (that urgency for unnecessary change? That's it.), and time is slipping away faster than it used to; you can see the societal power changes happening right before your eyes, too. The world is soon to fall into your lap, and you need to prepare to pet that furry wall.
Go for the gold, girly; we both know you can do it. After all, you made an A in algebra, you can do anything.
Here's to one helluva send off to the teenage years.
Sincerely Signed,
Yourself
See? You probably didn't have any idea what I was talking about. And I like that.
By the way, were you wondering about the furry wall?
If you haven't seen Get Him To The Greek yet, what the hell are you waiting for?
Oh, but this little trip down memory lane isn't over yet!
Reginald Kitty is not amused.
Ten thousand years ago, when the world was flat, and we paid for Internet access by the minute (dial-up, no less, you spoiled New Millennium tit monkeys!) my father's mother decided to write my sister and I letters for our future birthdays; this plan was not properly executed, and, therefore, I received my letters for birthdays twelve and thirteen tonight. I got a HUGE kick out of a portion of my thirteenth birthday letter, dated from 1994 (my third birthday):
One day, you came in my office, and I asked you 'what have you been doing today?', and you said, 'well, I went to the dentist and I bit him. My Mother was so proud of me!' You really did bite him hard; he had to pry your jaws open with a tool. Your Daddy said if you would be a nice girl the next time you went to the dentist, he would get you a dog.
I remember that incident very well. I put holes in his green latex gloves, and I was glad I had done it. That dentist hated me after that; I hear tell that I was the first kid that had bitten him. To this day, I still proudly hold two fingers aloft as I pass his office... there's a sick satisfaction to the immature act of blowing a mental raspberry at a man that tortured you as a toddler.
While we're feeling nostalgic, we'll have a 90's moment, brought to you by the memories of those creeptastic Furbys... or would that be Furbies? (I had a Furby, it was possessed.)
I seem to think my sister was not fond of all the airplay this song got; at some point, this would come on the radio, and she'd switch stations. It was too bad, I thought, since it was one of the few pop songs I liked at the time.
