"Presents This Way"
We were living in our house in Herderstrasse in Bielefeld, Germany. I had put up a big sign on my bedroom door last thing at night, the day before my birthday, that said "PRESENTS THIS WAY" and had gone to bed. I was nine. Kids do that type of shit.
My Dad came in and had pulled the sign down. He started to give me a lecture. I said "I know, I should just be grateful I have a Mum, Dad". I was remembering what he'd said at Christmas about "getting an orange and a hoop and being happy with it" and how my elder brothers had taken the piss out of him for it. No, he told me, Christmas was a time to be grateful for your family and being together. A birthday was a time to count your blessings about yourself. About being well, about not being in a wheelchair, about all the good things in your life. This didn't include how many presents you did or didn't get.
That's pretty hard on a nine year old. It wasn't said nastily, but I felt utterly bloody miserable. I think I really resented it: it was MY birthday and everyone likes/ expects presents on their birthday. The rest you just take for granted.
I've Grown Up
This year I had the *most* wonderful day. It was brilliantly sunny, my boyfriend came down from Manchester despite having exams and hating trains, and I was genuinely enjoying a moment of complete bliss.
I find this fascinating. I'm thinking about the day: it was the things I mention there I remember. It was also lying out on a field with Ste, looking at the sky, and taking a birthday "selfie" pic of the two of us and Oscar (my collie) that stick in my head. My next tweet after that was the following. I really mean it.
I'm not trying to be some up-itself, affected, non-materialist, worthy wank-piece here. I like nice things. We all do. My little home is beautiful. I'm so excited about getting a new car in July. What will I remember in years to come, though? The material things in my life, as lovely as they are, or moments like lying in a field with my boyfriend, being on holiday, feeling loved and giving love, or real achievements to be proud of, like working hard in my degree and graduating from university?
Dad was, of course, wrong to make some implicit suggestion that you can't be happy, or grateful for all manner of other blessings in your life, if you are in a wheelchair. But his enormous heart was entirely in the right place. My dad died in 2000, and would have been 74 this 14 April. It is fascinating I don't remember a single one of the presents I received on my ninth birthday, but I do remember what he said to me. That gift has lasted.
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