All my birthday presents are now residing in a lonely, dirty
landfill, buried beneath layers and layers of garbage.
And I have my father to thank for this.
I know he feels awful, but I feel awful too. I keep telling myself it’s the thought behind the gifts that matter, the love put in to the buying and giving process that’s important. But then I think of my beautiful new
stuff rotting amongst banana peels and baby diapers. What a waste. What a fucking waste.
After crying for quite some time and trying to hide it from my dad, who I could tell wanted to cry himself for making me so upset, I decided to take inventory of my losses. As mentioned in my birthday log, here’s what I owned for a day and then had taken away:
- a flowered Hello Kitty picture frame
- Hello Kitty socks
- a plush Hello Kitty stuffed animal wearing the cutest sheer flowered dress
- a Hello Kitty lunchbox
- three Hello Kitty and friends snap-together containers
- Hello Kitty nailclippers with a little keychain
- blue angel Hello Kitty playing cards
- Hello Kitty notepad (in the same style as the stuffed animal)
- a 64mb memory disk for an mp3 player
- a camera case
- a copy of The Black Cauldron on DVD
The only thing I am thankful for is that I took the actual mp3 player from the bag containing the rest of these lovely things, in order to figure out how it worked. I left the rest of the stuff sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting to be transported to my room. I guess during one of his vacuuming frenzies, dad took all things slightly resembling trash from around the house and threw them away. The packaging from my mp3 player was resting on top of the rest of my presents, as I did not want to throw it away yet in case there was something wrong and I needed to return it. I guess dad mistook the top layer of the bags contents as implying that the entire bag was full of garbage, so out it went into the dumpster, carried away the next morning by big, stinky men to a landfill far away. My mom was as upset as me, and promises to replace everything that was lost. The problem is, I don’t want it to be replaced. Stuff is just stuff, but birthday presents hold memories for a lifetime, and I lost that when my dad so carelessly threw them away.
I’m trying my hardest to get past this misfortune, but I think it will take a while. I am also trying my hardest not to blame my dad for what happened, because I know the thought of hurting me hurts him twice as much. But it’s hard.
I’ve leaving to go back to school in a few hours. My little brother is driving me, and then he’s going to stay the weekend and hang out. We don’t really have any plans yet, but there are going to be a ton of people visiting in Ann Arbor who I have not seen in several months (since before Thanksgiving to be precise), so I have a feeling there will be much to celebrate. Not to mention some friends owe me a belated birthday bash, or so they tell me, so I will most likely be heavily occupied for the next few days. Hopefully by then I’ll be able to forget the unhappy events of late. Even now, just the thought makes me want to cry more, even though as I type my face is incredibly red and puffy already. I have never felt more like a little kid.