Oddworld.

I'm sorry for the lack of updates, perhaps I haven't been feeling like a moody teenage since my birthday. Things haven't been bad, but they've not been good either. My days have been pretty mediocre at best, I could almost predict how they would end up.

I was meaning to write a post about my birthday and I never got around to it, until now. I hope you're comfortable, get your drug of choice ready - I have a feeling this post may be a little bit longer than usual.

I can't remember if I mentioned this in an earlier post, but around my birthday I tend to shy away from people and lock myself away. I don't like birthdays, well actually that's a lie, I don't like my birthdays. I'm the sort of person that very rarely gets excited, I take everything with a pinch of salt. I like to think I have a good grasp of everything around me, nothing is new or original, its just there and I'm just making the most of how it can service me. I'm content with everything, every event, everything.

Apart from my birthday. Perhaps it stems from being a child, I never had a proper birthday party, I never had friends over on my birthday, I never had a party at 'Wacky Warehouse' (No matter how much I pestered my mum). My mum would cook something or we'd go for a pub dinner, then we'd have birthday cake, I'd go to bed and that would be it - birthday over and done with, no songs, no dancing, no friends. Over and done with, seemingly in the blink of an eye.

Its been like that every year for as long as I can remember. My 18th was a little bit better, to say the least, she had made a pretty big effort in trying to make it a little bit special, but at the end of the day ( as much as I appreciated the effort ) my 18th was just like any other birthday, no friends, no songs, no dancing, no singing, no good times. Just a meal at a pub/restaurant, birthday cake, and then its the next day and my birthday had passed in the blink of an eye, yet again. The only thing that made it any different was the fact I woke up next to someone I genuinely loved. It was nice to receive a kiss and a 'happy birthday, gorgeous'.

This year was no different, a week or so prior to my birthday I started shunning people away, didn't mention what was happening, and moped around like morbid Melvin. All the while secretly hoping that when Sunday came around, I'd arrive at my step dads house to find all my family friends waiting for me, to have a good time and celebrate me turning 19.

Then on Friday my mum rang me to tell me that only a small portion of the family could come, which I didn't class a big deal as I have a family so large, a small portion of it would probably be large compared to someones else family.

So Sunday came around and I arrived in Chesterfield at my step-dads house. The family slowly but surely started to arrive. No one wished me a happy birthday, no one had gotten me a card. No one asked if I was having a good day, or how I was feeling. I was ignored completely, they were all far too interested in looking at my Aunt Ruth's holiday photographs.

I went home, smoked a joint that was far too big for me to handle on my own. I got in the shower with all the lights off with "Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago" playing. I don't remember much apart from turning the lights back on after the album had finished and thinking I had a set of ten old mens faces on the tips of my fingers.

A few days before, however, I had tried organizing a meal for me and some friends. No one came.

My birthday, in short, was shit. Just like it has been every other year, I've decided that from now on I won't be celebrating my birthday anymore, its just the one day of the year I get my hopes up for, only to be disappointed. No more birthdays for Jack, that's the last birthday I'll celebrate.