I am not that big on birthdays, or any socially mandated celebrate-able event; birthdays, weddings, Christmas, New Year's... you name it, I'm alienated by it. The part of me that will always be an angry, frustrated and unhappy 16 year-old sees it as a form of conformism. It is a totally unacceptable compromising of one's individuality to acknowledge social events that you are supposed to be happy about. I don't think I ever said that I had 'too many principles' to celebrate Xmas but it would not have been at all out of character for me between the ages of about 14 and 20.
By and large this has improved somewhat as I have 'grown the fuck up', but I still feel very uncomfortable being a member of a 'society' or 'community'. I am, psychologically speaking, a child of Thatcher in that I am happiest when I am with a bunch of individuals and I am at my most miserable when I am having to fit in. Seriously, there's a picture of me aged 15 and about to head off to my oldest brother's wedding and you would think that someone had just shot my dog.
For someone who would, deep down, be a lot happier if birthdays just went away, I think it was a good day. I got some nice presents, I had a very nice dinner and I spent much of the afternoon sorting loose change and uncovering, to my horror, that I had over £200 of it sitting in a cupboard. That's something worth celebrating!
Happy Belated Birthday! I'm hoping by this time next year, I will have read RIVER OF GODS, so that will be my birthday present to you, lol!
Posted by: Heather | September 22, 2008 at 06:25 PM
I'm sorry you didn't have a rotten birthday, conformist scum! ;)
Posted by: Shaun CG | September 22, 2008 at 06:38 PM
Thank you both :-)
Posted by: Jonathan M | September 22, 2008 at 10:42 PM