Tomorrow is Your Birthday

Tomorrow is your birthday.

I remember being a young child and having birthdays. They were always fun; always important. You made them that way, including your own. Holidays and special occasions, in retrospect, were welcome distractions from daily life and it’s shades of blue and gray.

Birthdays were exceptionally fun as occasions went, I thought. They came adorned in a full spectrum of cheerful colors in the form of streamers and cards and balloons and wrapping paper and bows. I loved that about birthdays. They weren’t limited to a few shades of pinks and reds, or greens and yellows, or anything else specific. They were open to interpretation. They were custom-designed; tailor-made for whomever was on the calendar for celebration that day.

Adding to the list of reasons that birthdays bested other yearly festivities by my standards was the offer of choices, the carte blanche ability to steer the boat for a day or so. You got to ‘pick’ whatever was to be decided by default because, well, it was your birthday. What to eat, what kind of cake, which movie to watch, what should we do after dinner…...all you, all day. Glorious.

Tomorrow is your birthday.

I remember that every year I chose banana cake with cream cheese frosting. No one else seemed so enthused by my choice, but I made it every single year because it was my day and it was my favorite and to this day, if given the opportunity, I still make the same request of whomever might be so thoughtful to ask. Without fail, someone always makes puppy-tilted-head-question-face at me and states, “What an odd choice for a birthday cake!” I guess? I don’t remember the first time or how I decided it was my favorite. I just remember it being so. Whatever came before is lost, somewhere amongst the piles of dirty laundry. Maybe someday.

I don’t know what you picked. I don’t know if you picked. I don’t even know what you would pick. I remember there was cake for your fortieth birthday. I have a picture. You are smiling. Your hair is short. You are pretty and you look happy. I also remember a Chippendale with muscles like rocks in a nylon sack. I wasn’t sure what this had to do with being forty, but I assumed you picked it. I don’t know who would have ordered this gift for you. Did you?

Tomorrow…

I remember when I turned thirteen. I felt fat. I dieted. Looking at photos now, in hindsight, I was perfectly fine. You bought me a diet book and said it was best that I pay attention to my weight now, because soon boys would only see how big I was, and not appreciate who I was inside. You hired a Chippendale to surprise me, because I was thirteen. He came to the door and you giggled and shoved me to the door to answer it. I shut down. He looked the way I felt; too small for what was happening and eager to be out of the situation so he could feel anything again. He gave me balloons. He didn’t have rocks for muscles. He looked like he was a boy recently, too. His head looked like that of one of the guys from my Tiger Beat magazine with a friendly, handsome, white toothed smile. His teeth all lined up with one another just so, the way that money does, not nature. His hair was thick and dark and parted in the middle. It was nice hair, and fashionable for the early 1980’s, but the whole thing seemed somehow overly large in proportion to the rest of him. His chest was slim and flat and seemed vulnerable and inappropriately exposed. He kissed my cheek reluctantly, having taken three small hesitations on his way in as if my cheek would possibly be molten hot or an angry shot-gun toting father might be lurking behind the sofa ready to pounce. He smelled heavily of cologne that was not befitting him. It smelled like a mature sexiness that neither of us was equipped to handle. He wished me happy birthday in an awkward, barely audible voice, and we posed for a photo which my mother took with one of those little Kodak cameras that looked like a slim, black, hard plastic wristlet that has an ice cube for a flash. His eyes were kind and soft and crying out for help at the same time. I saw the same kill switch had been activated in his brain as in mine, the one that stops feelings so you can get through it, whatever it is. I felt dirty after.

Tomorrow...I should have at least sent a card. Now it’s too late.

My brother, three and a half years younger than me, always picked the best cakes. When asked what kind of cake he wanted, the intentioned answer sought was a flavor, but he always asked for a thing: a guitar, a skateboard, a firetruck… My mom, not the most artistic, turned to our neighbor for assist in these matters. They pulled off some great results, and this was without the benefit of the internet or instructions of any kind, mind you. Just cake recipes and creative ingenuity, and, as I recall, a lot of cursing and laughing. That was early on. That was fun. Until thirteen.

You invited all of his friends over to gather in the living room to watch this time. The photo itself wasn’t enough. For him, you needed an audience. His was a girl. She was in a gorilla suit. The gorilla suit was stuffed into a pink ballerina costume. Supposedly these layers between her skin and your son, made it funny and not inappropriate, but to a thirteen year old boy, a lap dance is a lap dance and a room full of your friends laughing at you is just that, regardless of the reason. I have those pictures, too. The pain in his face. The humiliation. The sadness. He looked victimized. His friends, who laughed while it happened, acknowledged later how weird it was and how they didn’t know what to do.

When he turned thirteen, you repeated your odd right-of-passage ceremony as it had become to mark a passage into….what? Puberty? Surely not. Freedom? Adulthood? What did this ritual mean to you? What did you feel that day you when turned forty and we were all in the backyard at Grandmom’s and this over-sexualized being came and flirted all over you, making everyone else uncomfortable. It was the afternoon. Grandmom was there. Our priest. Me and my little brother. Our aunts, uncles, and cousins. What sensation did you have that translated to something you wanted your children (CHILDREN) to experience firsthand. What was this gift? What did you mean to give us at age thirteen? I am quite sure it was not trauma, but that’s what we received.

Once you make a break, it should be a clean break, right? Should I feel guilty?

It’s been four months since we spoke. Four months since you threatened me with police and lawyers. Since you called me six to sixteen to sixty times per day with a different mood every 45 seconds. It’s been four months since I realized that my efforts to ‘help’ you only angered you or enabled you or further restricted you. It was four months ago that I returned your checks and your keys and gave you instructions for how to pay your bills and reported off to your social worker and the nurse at the assisted living and wished you godspeed. I blocked your number because I had no choice. You wouldn’t stop. You are sick. You couldn’t stop.

Tomorrow is your birthday.

I have a knot in the pit of my guts. From it, springs a vine of pain and tears that grows spontaneously when it hears pills in a jar, or I go to the pharmacy, or I cut my husband’s hair, or I see a cane like yours, or I see a cat, or your wig catalog comes to my house. This vine springs out of a crack deep down and wraps itself tightly around my heart and something in my throat until I feel both ache in a way that is unique to “emotional”. Before I can catch up to myself, my eyes are wet and my hands are shaking and my breathing is fast and hard in and out of my mouth where the door is wider. This feeling comes (has come) since childhood, often and hard. It comes less now, since four months ago. But now is hard. Now I feel guilt. I don’t know how to treat you. I know I don’t like the way you treat me. I know you are sick. I know I am healthier now and I have room in my own brain for my own thoughts. But not right now. Not today.

Tomorrow is your birthday.