| okay, so i have the best family ever. i just do. i'm sure you think yours is great but for me, i wouldn't ask for a single change.
okay, traditional birthday at my house: the rest of the family works their butts off to make sure that the timing of the party is a surprise. then the victim - ahem - birthday person will hear the strains of sousa's "stars and stripes forever" from somewhere in the house. that's our birthday music. don't ask me how that started; it's been going on since i can remember. then throughout the whole song we hit eachother with balloons and blow party blowers. then the rest of the family sits around while the birthday person opens their cards and presents. the majority of the presents are usually from parents, and then the siblings all get the birthday person something. my family puts a lot of thought into gifts and until very recently, like the past year, all the cards were hand-made. and then there's cake and blowing out candles.
so yeah. here's my night:
i'm sitting in the living room with sam, reading my book and he's watching back to the future. then i hear the music. which i must say surprised me because it's not technically my birthday yet. so props for that one. and yeah. we went through the dancing about and smacking of balloons and blowing of blowers. plus they had party hats!!! and i was laughing and sobbing at the same time because it hit me that this is probably the last time i will ever have a birthday like it. next year i'll be "grown up", or at least busy, and i'll get a card with money or something. and nobody will have time. and maybe they will or something it just...idk. seemed like it all was ending. 18 is bigger than i thought it was. but yeah the gifts are as follows:
-from sam, a set of earrings that i adore, a braclet that doesn't quite fit but i'll fix it; it looks great. an absolutely snazzy watch on a chain that for some reason is completely me. and i don't wear watches, especially one on a chain. i think it goes with what i was telling him a month or so ago about really wanting to just let loose and be eclectic. and to top it all off, he gave me "the first repoko dvd card" and it was like a dvd with a menu and everything and it was a video of just stuff and random ish type things. if you've ever seen one of my brothers' videos then you'll know what i mean. music and all. it made me cry.
-from josh, a book called 'i'm gonna like me' which looked like a kids book, and it prolly is, but i absolutely love it. and the illustrations are to die for and it's gonna take me prolly the better part of an hour to see everything in them. then he gave me a movie-card too, and it was a mix of movie clips and their own video clips and it was how the evil father liguine was trying to destory debbie's birthday and would they help save it? and he had legolas, william wallace, professor xavier (who agreed to help only if he could take me out), and some other people to help. and it was actually really funny and great. they both have a real gift for that stuff. i never could do that. it made me cry, too.
-from my parents, a trip to new york to see 'wicked' on broadway!!! me and my mom are going on saturday and it's an all-day trip and i've never been to new york let alone seen a show on broadway and it's going to be freaking amazing! plus it's wicked and i've been wanting to see that ever since it came out!
then they gave me ice cream cake (my absolute favorite) and one candle so that i wouldn't screw it up when i had to make a wish and blow it out. they know i suck at blowing candles out.
the whole thing made me cry. my 18th birthday was a lot harder than i expected it to be. i'm delirously happy, but so miserable at leaving them. i've had some incredible people come into my life over the years, and i love them, but my family has really been there forever. i couldn't live without them, couldn't have lasted this long or gotten through so much or be facing college with as much grace and style as i am without them. they've made me who i am. |
