  Last night I was whining to Rahim about how I was going to be spending my birthday - in class and at work. By the time I would get home and be able to celebrate, it would be nearly 9 pm, with homework and housework left to do.
No real time for me, on my day. It's funny how I have this idea about birthdays. It's not that I expect to sit on a throne and have gifts lavished upon me. I already live my life, so I know that's not going to happen. But all I want is a day to do what I want - to sit around in pjs all day and cross stitch and eat donuts. To go to the zoo and pet animals. To play computer games until I've lost track of time. Of course, I do do these things on normal days, when I should probably be doing homework or such.
So, I shouldn't whine about it. So, this morning I get up, already late for class, and fumble around trying to get to school in one piece. When I get there (20 minutes late), a birthday cake and presents await me. Seriously! My friend Amanda was nice enough to get me a pink cake with my name on it. It was so touching. At the end of class, they sang 'happy birthday' to me. What more could a girl want?
When I was little, I was never able to celebrate birthdays in school or with classmates, because I had a summer birthday. Even when I did celebrate with my family, it was the usual dysfunctional crap. The birthday story that I always tell is one such example of dysfunctional b.s. Ever since I could remember, I always had a thing for vanilla frosting. Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for chocolate too. This is why I requested a cake that was chocolate on the inside with vanilla frosting on the outside.
Of course, why would the birthday requests of a little girl be considered in my family? I ended up with a cake that was majority chocolate frosting with 1/4 to maybe 1/2 vanilla icing. I was told it wasn't just my cake. It was everyone's to share, and not everyone liked or wanted vanilla. Maybe it was my brother who objected to the vanilla, I'm not sure. All I knew was that even on my birthday, I didn't count.
So now, whenever I can, I try to get a black and white cake - black on the inside and white (vanilla) on the outside. I want to remind myself of my own self-worth and value, on at least one day of the year. It's my birthday and I can have vanilla cake if I want to. All holidays are hard in my family. The worst are Christmas and Thanksgiving, when we're supposed to pretend that everything is okay and sit around like a peaceful, loving family.
But it was on those nights that more dishes and furniture would be broken. Knives would come out of drawers and I would lean against the bedroom door to keep the demons out. Well, the demon had a name, and she had her mark: me. You would think that one's birthday would be free from this grief, but it isn't. One year I bought my mother flowers on my birthday - you know, thank you for giving birth to me, I love you... They were in the trash within a few hours. Words are slippery things and her pain is quick. More than my anger, I have fear. I am afraid of what will happen, even at my old (! ) age of twenty seven years. But every birthday that passes is one more year I have survived.
And I know now, more than ever, that every year counts. 
