Tornado Sirens and Time Capsules

I swear as I drove to Dave and Buster's for one of my best friend's birthday parties tonight, I could hear tornado sirens. I didn't notice the storm blow over the past five years of my life, destroying the house made of cheap siding, and sweeping away the 2.5 children and yard I threw up during college. The only thing left was the thick stone foundation I'd started with these people years ago. We'd planned on building a brick house and had dreams of being doctors, lawyers, artists, and teachers. Instead we left highschool and put up shacks as quickly as possible with new people and settled for the paycheck. But tonight, none of that had happened. We had succesfully erased several years of bad things, and found a way to keep the good.

The highschool faces shown beautifully as if untouched by life, hidden away in a time capsule. The new faces that were there fit in as if they always belonged, and the ones that weren't there I expected to show up at every second. Money was a nagging factor, but I just couldn't bring myself to drink a beer and chance blurring this second chance.

I smiled in the background a lot tonight.

My birthday is in a week and somehow the excitement I once got for it has dissapeared. I somehow think its because this is the first year no one has asked me for a birthday list. I think birthday lists are one of the most innocent and sacred things, and people just stop believing in them around my age, like you stop believeing in the toothfairy.

Why do we create this world where we just work ourselves to death? Who decided the 40 hours workweek, rush hour traffic, large lawns to take care of, leisure time in front of the television? Why can't we reclaim and keep those things that are important to us?

I hate having the birthday song sang to me, and I hate having birthday parties, but I almost miss them. If only to have a little bit of that back. Take some significance away from bills and paychecks, and create and ultrasignificant counterbalance with a couple days a year.

This year for everyone's birthday I want a list and I don't want anything practical on it. Put a toy you want on it: a videogame, trainset you never got as a kid, remote control car, dolls, action figure, album. Stop asking for knifesets and matching curtains.