Summer of '07

Birthday Boy

Chapter 1

January 2019

~TRAVIS~

I never actually cared much for my birthday, to be honest. To me, I always thought of it as just another day in the year. Even as a kid I surprisingly felt the same way. I know, weird right? Most kids are thrilled at the thought of getting boat loads of presents and celebrating a new year as they finally feel "older" than they were just the day before. Not me, if anything I dread the idea of getting older. Like today, I turn 29 and I honestly couldn't be more terrified that this is essentially the end of my twenties. A year from today I'll be 30! Fucking 30 years old when I still feel like a child. I have no idea how the years have gone by so fast! It feels like just yesterday I was 14 going away to summer camp for the first time. Little did I know how much my life would change because of that summer. But that's a story for another day.

Today, I live my life as a boring 'ole paralegal working at some hot shot law firm in down town San Francisco. I swear I'm living my best life! If you couldn't tell, that was sarcasm by the way. In all seriousness though, my life is actually really boring and hasn't been very exciting since my college days. Now, I spend my days going through the same old routine on what seems like an endless loop. Wake up every morning, go to work, head to the gym, and then I'm right back home to where my day started—in my lonely, one-bedroom apartment that makes me feel like I'm living in a cage. I have friends that I hangout with from the law firm but sometimes even despite their company, I still feel like I'm utterly alone. I've never had a dad in the picture, and my mom died three years ago from epilepsy. My sister is all I have left and she's all the way on the other side of the country. I'm really close with a co-worker of mine named Jenny Berk and I love her to death. She's honestly the sweetest person I've ever met and without trying to sound cheesy, I'm so grateful to have become friends with such a beautiful person.

Like today after work she threw me a party at my place and invited all the people we know from the firm. Even though I've told her countless times that I don't care about my birthday and don't want a party, she insisted that she was gonna throw one for me. Her insistence is honestly the cutest thing so I ultimately gave in just because I can't say no to her. She's the only real friend I have in all of this misery and I don't want to push her away and make myself feel even worse.

At around seven in the evening all of my fellow co-workers come pouring into my cramped apartment, wishing me a happy birthday as they enter. The party kicks off with everyone cheerfully greeting each other as they pour themselves a glass of champagne. Afterall, there's no party without a hint of alcohol right? Makes me a tad bit nostalgic over the parties we used to have when we were kids, the ones where alcohol wasn't even a thing and the worst sort of drink we could ever ingest was either a coke or a Dr. Pepper. It's interesting to see the gradual shift in parties as we get older; child parties consist of silly games and juice boxes, teen parties consist of sexy games and hardcore liquor like tequila and vodka, and well, adult parties consist of generic adult games and softcore alcohol like beer and wine.

Now that I'm older and have gone through nine years of my twenties I don't really understand all the hype around getting drunk when you reach your late teens to early twenties. Having had my fair share of being drunk to the point of blacking out and puking my guts out when I was 21, I just can't bring myself to do it anymore. Back in high school, two of my so-called friends got so drunk one night that one of them passed out in the shower and the other did some stuff he totally regretted the next morning. Yeah... that was a crazy night. Being drunk just makes you do stuff you probably wouldn't do if you were sober. How does that saying go, again? A drunken man's words are a sober man's thoughts.

So yeah, as everyone chills around my tiny apartment with a glass of wine or a can of beer in their hands, I resort to my good ole' Dr. Pepper which I'd much rather have right now so that I can actually remember tonight by the time I wake up tomorrow. Back in college after I had just turned 21, and even a bit before then, there were countless times that I got fucking wasted and to be honest, I barely even remember much of what happened back in those days. It's like the memories simply can't form... and they never will either. So yeah, I rest my case... drinking just isn't for me anymore.

My friends though... they seem to be having a blast. I see the seven of the people that came to my party have brought their own packs of beer and bottles of wine and champagne. It of course wouldn't be a party without a bit of alcohol, right?

Speaking of which, about an hour into the party I see that one of my friends named Alan has already gotten drunk and he takes a hard slam straight into my bookshelf, knocking it over entirely and catching everyone's attention. A few of the guys help me lift the shelf back into place and we reorganize the books that, of course, just went everywhere from the fall. As we pick up the books and place them back on the shelves, Jenny finds one of my old photo albums and as I mean to take it from her, she pulls it away from my hands and begins flipping through the pages. I roll my eyes and just let her do what she wants. There's no sense in arguing with her. If there's anything I've learned from my best friend of five years, it's that Jenny will do what she wants to do when she wants.

When we're done putting all of the books away, I see that Jenny is still looking through my old pictures so I jump over the couch to join her.

The book opens with mostly just baby pictures of me and as the pages go on, we eventually come upon some pictures of me from summer camp during the summer of 2004. At the time, I was only 14 and I remember it was my first time ever going to summer camp before the start of my freshman year of high school. As we continue to flip through the pages, the memories all start floating back. And not necessarily the good ones. We soon come upon a certain picture that not only takes me back... but brings me a great amount of distress as I recall the memory that goes with it.