Growing up I hated having my birthday in January. As I got older I really hated having my birthday in January. Even though as kids my mom and dad always had a birthday party for me and even to this day they always send me a card and gifts. But having a birthday in January sucks. Nobody wants to celebrate with you. People complain when their birthday is before or around Christmas. But seriously they have it made. If your birthday is in December you can force people to celebrate your birthday. You can stipulate that they can not give you one gift for both holidays. But, when your birthday is in January you are simply shit out of luck.
Every year I get the phone calls saying "we would have gotten you something for your birthday but the bills from Christmas just came in and we are broke" or "we would love to celebrate your birthday with you but we are on a diet after all the junk food we ate over the holidays." These are real excuses I get from people. I have actually given up on ever hoping to have an adult birthday party.
Way back in the day when I was a young teen I got fed up with my January birthday and decided that I would change it to June 19th. Nothing happened in June, we were out of school, and it would be perfect. I told my parents I wanted to change my birthday and they did not go for it. My dad told me I could not have my birthday on June 19th because that was Juneteenth. This was back in the day when my daddy was just a tad bit prejudice about the African American community. So my parents shot down my suggestion of a new birthday. But that did not stop me from declaring that my new birthday was June 19th. As the years went by I ended up creating my own day in June, which we all know is June 11th. But my Juneteenth birthday still exists.
I just got my first birthday greeting from my sister. A few years ago when my mom called to wish me Happy Birthday in January my dad actual said "I thought her birthday was in June" so even though they declared I could not change my birthday in their minds I did so. So as all the African American's celebrate Junetenth I will be celebrating my faux birthday along side them.
