I was beaten up, with a broken hand, a black eye, my mother in ICU, a looming Biology Final on March 12, 2017. And it was still the best 18th birthday I've ever had.
Not that I've had more than one 18th birthday per se, but to me, that day was like a fire-red rose in a field of muted dandelions. I met my little brown nosed German Shepherd turned giant neighborhood nuisance, “Pico” on my eighth birthday. I got my first iPhone on my twelfth birthday; And yes, getting a phone is obviously a cataclysmic achievement to a 12-year-old. I had my first sip of beer on my seventeenth birthday.
I also called the police, and feverishly told them I had alcohol poisoning from my sip of beer on my seventeenth birthday. So obviously my eighteenth birthday wasn’t the happiest birthday I had ever had, but on that day, March 12, 2017, I had an epiphany that shook the very foundation of my very transient being.
Here's me two days before my birthday:
Until March 12, 2017, I was having what my South-Indian seven-year-old cousin described as a (pardon my tongue) “shit storm from my granny’s ass canyon.” A week before I Facetimed with my dad to see him outside a hospital that my mother had just been admitted to for malaria. Three days before my birthday, I slept like a log after a 25-mile bike ride, which was conveniently compulsory, and woke up at 11 pm to a complete stranger beating me with a hockey stick. (Let's keep that story for another time).
A day before my birthday, I left the hospital so that I could struggle to write a seven-page essay in an hour and a half with my broken hand. With nauseating medication, an overwhelming want to just break into tears, and general stress, things were not really how I had hoped (to say the least). By then, I had given up on the prospects of having one of those picturesque, overly cheesy birthdays. I wasn’t even sure my boarding school would let my parents come and meet me.
On March 11, I cried and cried and cried. I had so much going on, and it just seemed as though my world was crumbling before my eyes. That night I slept submitting myself to the fact that life isn’t always rainbows, Nutella and rainbow cupcakes.
But on March 12th I woke up in the middle of the night, once again, to another stranger on top of me. Another person with a hockey stick and a few loose screws? Thankfully this time it was my baby-face roommate. He snuck me — well dragged me — to another room, where every single person in the dorm building waited for me. Confused, surprised and a little sleepy I was escorted to the middle of that stuffed little room where I saw a small homemade dark chocolate cake, presumably filled with love and milk, with the words “Dhanush, you suck” engraved with Cadbury Gems on top.
I would like to note that staying true to who I am this cake was not flung at my face in boarding school fashion; I simply tripped and elegantly collided with the cake on the cold marble floor when entering the room. Then when everybody was singing “Happy Birthday to you, you were born in a zoo," that was the exact moment when I learned my first lesson of the day. No matter how bad things get, it will always, always get better sooner or later. It might be stormy right now, but the rain can’t last forever; You’re surrounded by true, sincere love, no matter if it's from the little fifth-grade boy who drowsily says “Happy Birthday Bhaia ” (Hindi for ‘big brother’ ) or the best friend who promises you he’s going to steal all your candy later, this love is found in every nook and cranny of every seemingly desolate mind and landscape — it is just a matter of finding this love. You just have to be a little patient sometimes.
That's also when I learned my second lesson, for the first time in a very long time, that all anyone needs is a great friend and a good laugh to have an amazing day. In these friends is where you’ll find that true, sincere love which washes away all the pains of yesterday. And yes, I just flawlessly quoted an Eminem song.
The third lesson I learned was while walking to get lunch and gossiping about the teachers’ sordid love affairs and such when suddenly my history teacher rushes up to me and grabbed my shoulder. Her touch froze me in fear and my mind raced- did I forget to do some really important project? Did I botch my history final? She said, “You other boys can keep on moving” while I prayed to a million Indian gods.
She looked me in the eye and said, “Dhanush, I know you’re going through a lot right now. But, please honey don’t forget that even when people put you down, you’ll still be amazing honey. Don't you dare change” Me being the definition of awkwardness and angst, I was more uncomfortable then shocked really.
Even though she made me uneasy, she made me feel just a little better.
As she walked away, she said, “Oh, and Happy Birthday.” That just made me more uneasy and embarrassed. As my cheeks turned red, I wondered about how unexpected that was. As Carrie Otis says “But life inevitably throws us curve balls, unexpected circumstances that remind us to expect the unexpected. I’ve come to understand these curve balls are the beautiful unfolding of both karma and current.”
Well, I guess what I’m trying to say is, life can’t be perfect, but of course, you already knew that.
Life is unfair; Life is cruel; it’s brutal, but you need to persevere and just wait for the good things. I promise you there will be good things- like a surprise dark chocolate cake or a loving and scary teacher (turned friend).
On my 18th birthday, I learned that the world may push me in a corner or break me, but that can all change in an instant. Quoting my cliché and cheesy history teacher, who you probably think I adore, “expect the unexpected, honey boo boo.”
