In the last three weeks, every time I pay for something with a credit card or fill out a medical form, someone clicks sympathetically at me about my birth date. “Wow, what a rough birthday to have!” or “Jeez, your birthday’s on September 11th?”
I was pretty good at first about passing off some nonchalant response or just smiling and walking away, but god. I have a whole lifetime of birthdays ahead of me. There are 4,000 or more people who were victims of those attacks who don’t. Believe me, I can deal with my birthdate. I am grateful to have a birthday, and I like to take advantage of living in a culture that celebrates them so heavily that they think it is grounds for EXTRA celebration to make up for the date itself.
I definitely appreciate that people are trying to be nice and sympathetic, but there isn’t anything to sympathize about, and it makes me feel shallow to think that I am EXPECTED to mourn the coincidence of my birthdate with a horrific incident. I don’t. Thank you, and good afternoon. I am going to go install MT3.1 which I should have installed three weeks ago when I signed up to beta test it. Oops.