When I was still living in Los Angeles and going through my freshman year of high school my dad took advantage of the bussing options that Magnet school allowed parents, enrolling me in a school that was far away from my neighborhood because he didn’t want me hanging out with the same bad crowd I was running with. The problem with trouble-making kids like myself is that no matter where you go, you’ll always find trouble. It was a whole new school with kids I was meeting for the first time. I was having trouble with my English teacher that first semester. I’ve made it pretty clear that I am a trouble maker, but this teacher seemed to think that I was the only disruptive kid in her class. There were times where it made no rational sense that I had caused whatever disruption she was upset about, but I still got a referral and was gifted some detention.
Obviously I had a lot of issues with that teacher, so the following semester I was switched to the other Magnet teacher that taught freshman English. I did a lot better in that class, went from failing my freshman English class to getting an A. In that class I also met a girl that I fell in love with the moment I saw her. She didn’t attend the first week of school because of a family trip to Mexico, but when she walked to her desk – that was directly facing me from across the room – I was mesmerized. I cannot look back and objectively say that she was the most beautiful girl I have ever laid my eyes on, but there was something about her that just struck me. She was a very nice girl, a shy girl with a certain innocence about her and I enjoyed talking her. I was a bit shy myself and I hadn’t told her or anyone else that I liked her, kept that card close to the chest.
Later on in the semester my 15th birthday rolled along. My homeroom teacher let my classmates know that is was my birthday (I was never the self-centered, attention whore, asshole that needs people to acknowledge him. I know this whole entry sounds hypocritical because by the virtue of my writing it, I’m bringing attention to it. This write up is just a necessary evil). Word got around to all my other classmates in my other classes about it being my birthday and everyone treated me with a lot of love and attention, which I didn’t really want. The best part of that day wasn’t the presents I got later on, I don’t even remember what they were. The best part was when the girl that I liked came up to me in the hallway and in full view of everyone, gave me a hug and a nice kiss. It wasn’t even a full make out kiss with tongue. It was a kiss on the lips, closed mouth, but it was a lot more memorable than all the kisses that came before and most of the ones that came after.
As much as I liked the attention I got that day, particularly from the girl I had a crush on, as much as I may unintentionally bring attention to myself, I don’t really feel all that comfortable being the center of attention. I don’t have any anxiety about it, I guess I’m just not used to being complimented and praised for a job well done, especially when I did no job at all.
My issue with celebrating my birth is that I didn’t do anything, I was pushed out, I had no choice in the matter. Being born is not an accomplishment. You want to congratulate someone for my birth? Bombard my mother with well wishes and congratulations. She’s the one that did all the work. She’s the one that carried me around for 9 months. She’s the one that was in labor for all those hours and finally pushed me out at 2:12 p.m. on March 31, 1984. She’s the one that nurtured me from her bosom, made sure I was warm and comforted me when I was crying. I shouldn’t get any of the credit.
You want to congratulate or condemn someone for my birth and my still being here? Take it up with my father. He’s the one that put a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in my stomach. He’s the one that worked two or three jobs at a time to take care of four kids, two dogs and a tank full of goldfish (fish require a lot of attention). He’s the one that helped me with my homework, that nurtured my artistic side, who took me on fishing trips and tried his damned-est to make sure I didn’t end up leading a life of crime. I shouldn’t get any of the credit.
Every year I’m plagued with a barrage of unwanted messages on Facebook. No matter how many times I plead for people not to do it, they don’t listen. Every year a bunch of people I don’t talk to, a bunch of people I don’t interact with – even on Facebook – feel the need to post birthday wishes on my wall and congratulate me for having staved off death for a another orbital cycle. Considering all the times I’ve flirted with death and all the close calls I’ve had, I guess congratulations may be in order. The people I don’t talk to don’t give a fuck about me and I don’t give a fuck about them, so let’s not pretend here. Maybe I should welcome all those messages. It would give me a good idea of whom I should delete from my “friends” list. I don’t care much for phony niceties. I’d rather you just said nothing.
It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed my birthdays. It’s not that anything bad has happened on my birthdays, except for that one year Selena was killed on my birthday and everyone was too busy watching the news coverage and not hooking me up with a piece of cake. Just like the fat kid I am, I love chocolate cake and I look forward to getting a slice every year… It never happens because my family gets whatever cake it feels like getting, usually not chocolate. Maybe that’s where my birthday blues come from; lack of chocolate cake.
I love hanging out with my friends and just getting drunk, I love going out to dinner with those friends and when I have a girlfriend or a woman I’m messing around with, I love doing nasty things to her or having her do them to me. But, those are things I love doing whether it’s my birthday or not. I get a much warmer feeling celebrating the birthdays of people I care about than I do celebrating my own. It’s those little things that matter to me.
I marvel more at the circumstances that lead to me being here; the explosion from the singularity some 13.8 billion years ago that lead to the expansion of the universe, that brought forth the elements and created the stars, those stars that continued to burn and exploded in supernovas, the molten rocks that joined together and began circling those stars, the planets that cooled down and developed atmospheres and moons, the earth that housed the primordial soup that was the first life on it, the formation of water that allowed those single-celled organism to spread out further, the flora that provided oxygen to the oceans and the world above water, the first creature that made its way onto land, those creatures that became the first mammals, those mammals that led to Lucy the Australopithecus, that led to Homo Habilis, that led to Homo Erectus, eventually to Homo Sapiens, those ancient humans that migrated from Africa to Europe and Asia, the Asian humans that crossed the Bering Stait into North and South America, the Europeans that invaded the Americas and conquered the indigenous people, those Hispanics that created the Spanish colonies in Latin America, those natives that fought for independence from Spain to form their independent countries, my ancestors that lived and died in the developing country of El Salvador, my parents who met when they were children, my father who dated a my mother when she was raising two kids that weren’t his, the war that upended lives and killed tens of thousands, that cause my mother to look for a better life in the U.S. while leaving her two children with their grandmother while she got things ready in a foreign country, the war that killed my father’s mother and closed down the universities ending his dreams of becoming a doctor and forcing him to look for a better life in the U.S., the circumstances that led to my parents finding each other in the U.S. after a year apart and eventually the relationship that let to my conception.
Those are amazing circumstances and those are the things and accomplishments that should be celebrated. I shouldn’t get any of the credit, all I did was being born.
Let me say this... 