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Happy Birthday does not exist in my phrasebook November 02, 2002 ~ 2:00 a.m. This entry is for me. To those of you who think you know the nightdragon well, you may be in for a shock. But as I say, this one is a catharsis of sorts and is totally for me: It�s a sunny, mild morning in late 1979. I�m about to �go into double digits,� as I proclaim to the neighborhood all day. In other words, I�m on the verge of my tenth birthday. My entire fourth-grade class is expected to arrive to help me join me in celebrating the big 1-0. I am as excited as you�ll ever know. One thing I know for certain is that I�m getting a BigTrak for a present. C�mon, all you thirtysomething Americans, you remember those! It was all the rage in �79. Two years later, I am riding up the street on my bicycle, Billy Joel�s �She�s Always a Woman to Me� rolling around in my head (must have had something to do with listening to The Stranger album a thousand times before going out), blissfully wondering what exactly he meant by throwing shadows at someone and earning one�s degree. (Fahrenheit, Celsius or Kelvin?) Somehow, I knew that turning 12 was a special occasion, a strengthening of the puberty that I�d already begun to feel. I didn�t know anything about it, but I didn�t question it either. I was gonna be twelve come 7:30 that fall evening in 1981 and I was proud of it. Those were the birthdays I�ll always remember most fondly. It was a time to like birthdays. A time to feel proud. A time to look forward to the future. Now I loathe and resent my birthdays. This Wednesday, I will turn 33. Whoop-de-fucking-do! Is that another grey hair I see sprouting from my sideburns? Is that another grand that I paid toward my life insurance? Is that another painful twinge in my lower back? Most of all, is that yet another dream that I once loved and held so dear in my younger days that I�ve now seen stabbed and butchered and bled to death since then? One fine summer day, when I was 12, I declared that I was �gonna head south all day.� With a compass and a notebook in hand, I followed a southerly direction. I must have walked about three hours. What adventures I was going to have! I sure did all right, one that sent my heart racing into overdrive. I was walking through the parking lot of a business. The signs attached to the building announced, in bold scary letters, NO TRESSPASSING � POLICE TAKE NOTICE! I ran like I�d never run before, not even in my high-school cross-country days four years in the future. But damnit, someday I was going to be a famous geographer, a world-renowned explorer, blazing the trail of adventure everywhere I went. I had wet dreams about Alaska. Maybe, to a certain degree, I�ve accomplished some of that. I have my BS degree in Geography, earned at age 24 (�and so much more,� according to Neil Young). I haven�t been to Alaska yet, but I also fantacized about Europe in those early days and now I have England, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium all notched under my belt. That sense of adventure, admittedly, has not died. So why do I still feel so incomplete? Life was to be explored. Challenges were to be faced and I absorbed learning and science like a sponge. I was reasonably content and happy. Then something happened. I grew older. That optimistic blessing of youth disappeared. As Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes once stated, �a lifetime of experience has left me bitter and cynical.� So I�ve travelled. I�ve found that it�s not all it�s cracked up to be. So I live in London. I miss where I�m from. Terribly at times. So I�ve earned my degree. It�s gotten me an average 9-to-5 job. In my youthful dreams, a degree in Geography had me doing some serious environmental planning, digging for fossil fuels in rocks, gerrymandering elective districts. Now I answer queries from college students that are ten years younger than me. But the most fucked up thing about it all? Every year older was a good year. It was all the closer I was to getting out of school, establishing my independence and becoming the award-winning National Geographic writer I wanted to be. But I joined the rat race instead. I�m Mr. Anonymous. Another face in the crowd. And now another birthday is on the horizon. I don�t want to know anything about it. I will not be celebrating it. I will come home Wednesday night at my normal time, crack open a beer, watch some TV or play a game of baseball on the PlayStation and then go to bed. What a life. I expected more and got far less. But am I any different? I suppose not. It takes exceptional fortitude to actually see one�s young dreams come true. And I just simply didn�t have it. And so, on Wednesday, I will be older. That�s all, nothing more. Just older. And it is certanly not a fact to be celebrated. I just don�t want to know about it. In fact, here�s my hope for what little remains of my future � to stop being so obsessed with numbers, that I don�t have to walk around with an invisible �33� dangling from my neck like some fucking scarlet letter. Perhaps if I can just not see what�s happening, ignore the brutally mundane adult life that I�ve been hurled into, I�ll be alright. Wednesday will be just another day for me. Just another day. Just another stinkin�, ordinary day � � M.E.M.
Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
AMERICA FOR TRUE AMERICANS!
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