I loathe my summer birthday. Especially since coming to Penn. Take last summer, for example: my mom asked me what I wanted to do for my 19th birthday, which at the time was coming in a few weeks. My plans were simple: round up a few friends in the area for lunch at my favorite “witch–themed” cafe, then go watch One Day (I love Anne Hathaway… whatever, hater). That is, until I checked my Facebook and realized that the friends I wanted to invite were all either going to be on vacation, back at their respective schools or scattered across the country.
At this point in my life, I wasn’t surprised. Why must my friends be absent in August? It was a vicious cycle repeating itself, year after year after year. Oh the woe of being a summer baby. When you’re young, you want nothing more than to invite all your friends and go play Laser Tag, but if you’re unfortunate enough to be born in July or August, you’re lucky if your friends are still in town.
Or if they are, it’s those awkward friends from high school you promised to keep in touch with but never did. Now you’re stuck hanging out with Sally, who won’t shut up about all the awards she’s won for fencing at insert state school. SHUT UP SALLY, NO ONE CARES.
In elementary school, I was always jealous of the other kids in the class who got to be Mr. or Ms. Popular for the day just by having their moms bring cupcakes and having the class sing “Happy Birthday” to them. The teacher always insisted on celebrating class birthdays in chronological order, starting with September. By the time June rolled around, the teacher would be so burnt out from this crap that she always seemed to “forget” July and August birthdays.
It only gets worse when you’re college. No excited Facebook posts from friends leading up to your birthday like, “OMG, ARE YOU EXCITED FOR THIS WEEKEND?!!!!” No birthday BYOs at Don Memo’s. No drunken mayhem. Nope, because you’re stuck at home with your family still receiving cards from grandma with 20–dollar bills not–so–secretly tucked into them, as she tells you not to “spend it all in one place.” Don’t worry Grandma — I won’t. I’ll spend half on Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, and the other half on tissues to dry my tears.
So the next time you try complaining about having a midterm the Monday after your “totally awesome birthday weekend,” remember: at least you had an awesome birthday weekend. I was sitting at home, chilling with my cats this summer.
