Birthday Blog
I just had my 21st birthday and it was about as good as I could have ever asked for. It's not what most people would think of or ask for their 21st birthday. Luckily, Ricky (if anyone reading is not familiar with tommywaite.com, Ricky is my best friend that goes on and off the grid at will) came back on the grid about two weeks before my birthday. We called each other and caught up/discussed pressing topics in our lives/joked about taking up ice sculpting as a hobby a few times that first week. Ya know, normal stuff. During those literal 3 hour calls, I mentioned how I wanted to do nothing big for my birthday for a lot of reasons that I will get into later, but also in part because I waited too long to throw a party for myself. That next week I was home for spring break. My birthday was during spring break and on a Saturday, so it would have been a perfect storm for a great 21st birthday filled with drinking and reckless abandon. Instead, Ricky and I cried from laughter at a Red Lobster next to an annoyed family, went to Burgatory (my favorite burger/milkshake place) for a milkshake and had a serious conversation, and then went to a discount clothing store and laughed at imagining wearing some of those clothes in high school. One of the two things we thought was so funny that we excreted water from our eyes had to do with an interaction with the waitress. Actually both had to do with the waitress and they both are ‘you had to be there’ stories but I'm going to say them anyway because it’ll make me laugh when I read this back in the future. Ricky told her it was my 21st birthday and she warned us about being safe because she couldn’t imagine losing her kids and she doesn’t want our parents going through that. She said “I couldn’t breathe without my kids” and Ricky said “That’s how I feel about air.” Classic kid not understanding how valuable life is. The second of two things is saying “I’m thinkingA 3 dollar tip” even though the waitress was really nice. I think he said that after she didn’t want to give us more of those famous Red Lobby’s biscuits. Sorry for wasting your life for those last six (now seven) sentences about an inside joke, but at the same time this whole website is one big inside joke hahaha.
It's crazy how it's kinda up to someone else to throw a party for you and if no one remembers or cares enough to throw one, you either have to throw yourself a party or be okay with being forgotten. No one wants to throw their own party because that's so self aggrandizing. It is especially bad in the workplace or something. Bringing in your own cake and planning your own party is really annoying to me because you’re just reminding people it’s your birthday to get more attention/free stuff. I think it’s a cheap & meaningless way to do it. I do like the idea, though, of taking one of your sick days, but going into work in your regular clothes and just eating an entire cake by yourself from 9-5 because that would be so funny. Also, throwing a party at your own house is basically saying, "hey everyone drive to me and celebrate me by singing to me in unison while I stare at a giant rectangular pastry with sugar paste spread all over it to spell my name.
So I just don’t like birthdays all around. They mostly just remind me that I'm alone and no one cares. I don’t let people cheat by seeing it on social media either. I want to know who’s really With me. Turns out not a lot. I’ve been in the single digits the past few years of people saying happy birthday. I also don’t like how people use saying happy birthday as criteria to ‘prove’ that they’re friends (ex. “oh yeah I’m friends with *someone higher status than them*. I just said happy birthday to him last week.”) No, man. You're not friends because they ‘liked’ your Instagram DM. Golden birthdays and half birthdays are the worst about birthdays. It’s just another excuse to celebrate yourself for involuntarily falling out of one of your parents.
I skipped my cousins 1st birthday. She has the same birthday as me, which is super annoying. Annoying with a fun connotation. It’s not something you can really get mad about because it’s no one’s fault and no one was purposely trying to “steal my thunder” as Monica would say (plus the baby was a ‘surprise’ so you just have to laugh at the absurdity of how life works). They had the baby’s party on our actual birthday, so obviously I wasn’t coming. My Mom was really upset and couldn’t believe I wanted to do what I wanted (which was soberly hang out with my best friend and have a semi-nice dinner at Red Lobster) on my birthday instead of go to a one year old’s party that doesn’t even know what that is. I maintain that a 21st birthday is more important than a 1st birthday. I later got to know her better and play with her and she’s a swell gal. She doesn’t even know I didn’t go to her birthday and she would like me just the same if she did know, I'm sure.
Gifts are obviously an element of birthdays. Pre-gifting is important. Don’t get someone a present only because it’s their birthday or Christmas or whatever. Get a gift when you see something that they’d like and it’ll be around when the time is right. I don’t expect my friends to buy me a gift for my birthday anyway because most my friends are broke and just their presence is a gift which sounds tacky, but it’s true. Also, I think if you’re in your 20s or less you shouldn’t feel bad not getting a gift especially if you show up and you shouldn’t be upset if someone in their 20s doesn't get you a gift because they’re all broke.
I haven’t drank in my life. That may change, who knows, but right now I am not. There’s plenty of reasons not to drink and some reasons to drink, of course. There’s basically two perspectives for drinking; ‘why?’ and ‘why not?’ For me, the biggest reason I'm a ‘why do that?’ person right now is being afraid of liking it too much and changing to a “why not do this everyday!!” way of thinking for drinking. I already like the smell. People talk about how it smells and tastes bad, but I like the smell so that makes it scarier that I might Really like it. I’m an obsessive person and if I like drinking too much then it could be unhealthy emotionally & physically. I never saw someone drinking and said "yeah that's what I want to do" you objectively look stupid if you get drunk. It's such a common joke that's like "oh man what did I do last night?? I regret it now that I don't have anything impeding my thought process." Another big reason is I hate doing what’s expected. You're expected to drink when you're in high school and college and on your 21st birthday. That’s cuda.
I think kids are right more than we remember. They like colors and ice cream and sweetly smiling at strangers, but we often forget to take the time to enjoy these things because tax day or a deadline is coming up. Another thing kids always don’t like is drinking. I remember crying and crying when I used to see my mom with a drink in her hand. I think we get corrupted later into thinking otherwise. I think a big part of the corruption is when you think you have the opportunity to do it, you feel a part of something. It was this ‘exclusive club’ of people that can drink and you were on the outside with all the kids and ‘lame' people wishing you could be included. Then, when you have an opportunity to be in this club, you take it just because you can. It’s the same thing with spanking your kids and frat hazing. You hate it when it’s happening to you then once you're out of that situation and have a little bit of power, you want to do to other people what other people did to you. I don’t get how because it happened to you it makes it okay. I'm getting a little off topic, but I’m just trying to stay true to kid Tommy and be someone I could look up to as my former self.
I’m not an advocate for no one ever drinking either though. I think I can be easily mistaken for someone who thinks that. Like I mentioned before, there are some reasons to drink and one I can think of is just for a new experience. I like the idea of being older if/when I try new stuff because my brain will be more developed and understand what’s happening better and handling whatever it is rather than doing it in middle school when my brain is only half developed and I don't know how to process what’s happening. Another is alcohol can get people out of their own way. Sometimes people need to and can’t relax or they need a little bit of ‘liquid courage’ to ask out their future mother of their children. In my opinion it’s not all bad or all good, like everything else.
I sent this to someone who apologized for not remembering my birthday: “I think it's funny making people feel bad because I really don't care and think birthdays are stupid. If you think of me at all no matter what day it is, it's a gift. So it pretty much means the same to me if you tell me happy birthday on September 3 or March 24th. I think I'm going to write a blog about birthdays” Prophesy fulfilled!
The fact that they forgot to put an ‘s’ on “Birthdays” and “realization” is spilling over the frame is proof that no one cares and I think that makes this cake perfect and funny.
88 Likes, 13 Comments - Didymus (@thetommywaite) on Instagram: "I'm 21! It means nothing!"