Happy Birfday

Birthdays can be fun.  Parties, presents and people. They can also bring up all kinds of memories, good and bad.

I have a memory, that goes way back, I think I was maybe seven.  I don’t even remember the girl. I have a suspicion, but with a fuzzy recollection I won’t attempt to point a finger. Oh I’d like too. It would be fun to call her out, ask her why she was so very mean, why me, ya know? Of course I have a pretty good idea why me, but I’d like her to give me an answer anyhow. Maybe even offer up an apology…..it might even be sincere who knows?

The memory goes like this.  I’m a sad little girl. I don’t have many friends.  I’m bullied every day on the way to school and on the way home.  Home isn’t much better.  I’m pretty much ignored, which isn’t bad because when someone pays attention, it’s usually negative attention, aka a beating for something I did or didn’t do.  Or I was told yet again how stupid I am. So yeah, most days were barely tolerable.  It was about surviving the day mostly intact…..laying low….flying under the radar so to speak.

One extra ordinary day, I got a birthday party invitation.  I hardly knew what it was – I had never gotten one at school before!  Man I was excited! I kept it hidden from the bullies and ran home as soon as I could and showed it to my mom!  A real live birthday party invitation! To this girl’s party! She invited me!  The ugly, hated girl in school!  I was beside myself with joy.  Let me tell you it was so hard picking out a present too. It had to be perfect! I couldn’t embarrass myself by picking out something dumb and ugly!  She just had to keep on liking me after the party! I went with a Barbie.  You can’t miss with a Barbie.  It was a pretty plain Barbie though, we didn’t have much money.  But it was a Barbie and I was so proud.

Waiting for the big day was excruciating. I don’t remember all the details I just remember hiding it from the bullies and not saying anything to them. I know they were invited and I wasn’t about to let them know I was invited too.  I couldn’t risk getting uninvited at the last minute!

 

Finally, the big day arrived (a Saturday).  My mom had helped me wrap the Barbie in cute pink birthday paper and I had a card too.  I remember it had rained but I didn’t care!  I was going to a party! I was INVITED!  I was SOMEBODY!  We found the address and pulled up.  She lived in a neat house, that had two stories. It had neat concrete steps that you had to walk up to the front door.  These were like rich people houses (you see I grew up fairly poor…anyone with a decent looking house was rich to me).  I cautiously walked up the steps, I suddenly got nervous. I had never been invited before. What if I did or said something stupid? What if all the girls laughed at me?  I hesitated, looked back, and my mom and dad were waiting like hurry up and ring the damn bell already………so I reached out and rang the bell.  I heard it inside go off.  I took a deep breath and waited.  Nothing.   I waited and looked back and again saw irritated parents so I tentatively stuck my finger out (shifting the gift wrapped Barbie under my arm, as it was now getting wet in the rain) and pushed the bell again. Ding Dong.  Again no response.

I rang the bell one more time and walked dejectedly back down to the car.  My dad yelled at me asking me if I was too stupid to ring a doorbell.  I told him no I rang it three times but no one answered.  He made me go back up and ring it yet again.  UGH.  Again, no answer.

So me and my gift wrapped Barbie got in the car and went home.  I think I cried but I don’t remember.  I don’t even remember what happened after this.  I think I blocked it out (well obviously I did).  I remember the door bell ringing the walk back to the car………I remember the wrapped Barbie staying in the top drawer of my mom’s dresser for several years – which leads me to believe that I was blamed for the party mishap.

Years later I was hit with the realization of what went on.  She had given me a “fake” invitation, one with the wrong location or date or time on it, so I showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time, while the party went on somewhere else.  Like I said, I don’t remember what happened  at school that following Monday.  I don’t even remember if my mom called her mom or what.  I do remember the humiliation of it all.  The humiliation of the Barbie remaining in my mom’s dresser for several years too, as if to say this is all your fault. 

So birthdays can be fun…..they can also be landmines.