We're Gonna Party Like It's Your Birthday

Wednesday February 23rd 2011

As I write this the time has passed 2am, but I feel that I have to get it out before the spirit of things is lost forever to the past, to decaying memories and to...other stuff. Today, the 23rd February 2011, or yesterday if you want to be incredibly pedantic (and I don’t encourage that, stop it now please!), was the end of the world. Ok call me a liar; you probably know it wasn’t the end since you’re sitting reading a blog. That’s just not end of the world behaviour. Not that I’m an expert on such things, seeing as how the world has never actually ended before. However, I have it on good authority from Hollywood blockbusters that after an apocalypse, survivors never turn around and go “Hey have you still got wifi? I totally have to update my Facebook relationship status to ‘It’s complicated’- I hate Bob for getting eaten by those aliens!”...

Continued on Saturday 26th February 2011

... Alright, so it wasn’t the end of the world for everyone, just me because I’m special (don’t even say it, I know what you’re thinking). There weren’t any aliens though and I’m sure Bob is fine because there was just a birthday. A 21st birthday to be precise. To be a little more precise it was my 21st birthday, which is actually a little too precise for me as I’m really trying to repress that information. I’m not exactly one of these people who goes clubbing or drinking or out...at all. I’m kind of an indoors person (nice way of saying I have no social life), and pretty much teetotal (that might explain the social life), so turning 21 has no significance to me, other than it being another year closer to old age and death. Sorry to put a downer on things, but I’m just saying it the way I see it right now. When I finished 6th form, I decided to take a gap year. I hate studying (ask the Lakes), so I wasn’t exactly motivated to rush right into 4 more years of it. I got a job at Emily’s shopping heaven (Boots) and worked there for nine months. If there was anything to convince me that 4 more years of studying was exactly what I wanted, working in retail full time was definitely it. I commend anyone who does it; you deserve medals, because I could not have endured even one more month than I did. So I started university and met the Lakes and the rest, as they say, is history. Except! Except now I’m one year older than all of them, and if you’ve been paying any attention, if you’re at all cognisant of the world around you, you’ll realise that my birthday is in February. February is a wonderful month, the best month, Primus inter pares as they would say in politics (hey, I learned something in Gov and Pol, go me!). However, it is also near the start of the year, so I'm not only a year but a year and a bit older than the rest of the Lakes. Emily, the youngest of the Lakes, takes great joy in reminding me of this at every opportunity. Take this example of one of our conversations in the days leading up to D-Day (the wording isn’t exact as I’m going on memory, but the sentiment is entirely correct)

Emily- “You’re going to be 21 in a few days time; I’m still 19.”

Lalita- “You’ll be 21 soon too, and then I’ll tease you about it.”

Emily- “Yeah, but then you’ll be 23, and I’ll still find that funnier.”

Lalita- “I’m going to kill you.”

How can a girl possibly feel anything but dread about turning 21 when she has ‘friends’ such as these? At the end of the day however, it wasn’t quite the horror I imagined it would be, which is not saying that I’d like to repeat the experience anytime soon. Emily, quite bizarrely, dragged me to the Tate Modern ‘Art’ Gallery on the South Bank in London. If you haven’t been, don’t bother, I can assure you that you’re really not missing out on anything. Unless your idea of ‘anything’ is to stand in front of some ‘art’ and go “Huh, I really don’t get it.” If it is, then you should totally go. Totally! But don’t say I didn’t warn you, cause I so did and I will gloat about it, you can be sure of that. While we were out, my shoes got wet and dyed my feet purple (traitorous things, after all the love and devotion I give them), and I made a few very bad home (away from home) movies, much to camera person Emily’s delight. Then I returned home and went out for food and cake and worrying that everyone invited would get along with each other. All in all, a typical birthday I would imagine.

And now, what’s done is done, I see no point dwelling on the subject one second longer, and I shall spend the next 361 days of my life pretending that it’s not going to happen again. Until it inevitably does.

“God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference”- Serenity Prayer


Love, Lalita xxx