Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Big Occasion Fighting

My family are what's known as "Big Occasion Fighters" most of the time we are pretty civil towards each other. Give us a wedding, birthday, funeral, Australian Idol live performance, national athletics final and we are at it like Mike Tyson in a room full of ears.

This is why I have grown to hate my birthday.

Here is a fun fact for you all.

Every year from age 5 right through to 16 I was sent to my room DURING my birthday party for poor behaviour. Yes EVERY SINGLE ONE. I remember one particular year I was having a pool party and I refused to be kind to my little sister. I really didn't want her there, I begged Mum to ship her off to my Auntie's for the day- No dice.

My Mother became so frustrated with me withholding the pool pony from her and generally being a cow I was sent to my room....

Which over looked the pool....

While my party continued on I sat on my bed watching it silently plotting the death of my sisters guinea pig, it was to involve a slinky and some peanut butter (Note, no harm ever came to Oswald the guinea pig, well that's not entirely true.... Wait, I'll get into that in a moment)

The next year I had another party which involved me being sent to my room because we had been busted putting incense in our mouths and blowing it out like cigarettes....

It was PATCHOULI for goodness sake! My Mum freaked out and I was banished.. It seems a few of the kids got a little light headed on the incense (Ok so maybe a few had joints instead of incense but I was not one of them, I was too piss weak so I went with the sandlewood patchouli mix. Straight off the incense stick no less!) ....and may or may not have let him out of the cage.. To this day there is no hard proof that someone at my party killed him, I still think he could be out there roaming the streets of Diamond creek....

Once I moved in with my husband we took over the proud tradition of B.O.F.. At our wedding we fought right there on the dance floor, he refused to twirl me.. I'd pretty much waited for this moment my whole life and when he refused I was livid. So as we swayed to Al Green's "Let's stay together" those sitting close enough to the dance floor would have heard me muttering through gritted teeth "God, you are so selfish. Just fucking twirl me".....

Anyway, today is my birthday.. I have become very anxious about this day. I wake up expecting to fight with someone in my family. I didn't realise this is why I hate my birthday so much until my husband was doing some "unsolicited life coaching" and got to the bottom of it.. He asked me to think back to as many birthdays as I could and see if there was a common negative theme.. There sure was! Me, in my bedroom hating the world while my friends played. I usually deserved to be there mind you, it's not that my Mother was a sadist.. She turned into one when I hit 15, as did I.

It's 6:07pm and I am about to meet my parents for dinner. I am going in with a positive attitude.
I must put an end to the Big Occasion Fighting for the sake of my children. This is not a legacy I wish them to have.


Smiling and waving!

Em x

4 comments:

Chef said...

Hopefully you had a lovely birthday at the end of it all, but I digress; can full well understand the BOF, have the same ailment of BOF's on my birthday for as far as I can remember.

I make sure to go into hiding if I am not working or do the best I can to not have a day off (my kitchen is my sanctuary).

But yeah, a happy belated birthday and thanks for blogging & tweeting.

Your words are amusing and great to relax to.

all the best. =)

Eileen said...

i hope you had a happy birthday em. you sounded like a normal teenager to me! but am glad your girls wont suffer what you had to go through. my family occasions are the exact opposite of your b.o.f. we go out of our way to be nice to each other during family occasions and hate each other the rest of the time. while my dad was alive, he instilled upon us the importance of family, so when we all caught up for xmas etc it was all lovely and sugary sweet. then the rest of the year, we barely could meet up for a coffee. since my dad passed we now don't need to be pleasant, so we try to avoid each other! am happy with that.

Unknown said...

I've never been good with birthdays. Always hated the attention. My first feral reaction was on my 21st. I didn't want to a party but of course my parents insisted. While they were cutting the cake and taking a million photos, I swore at them and stormed out.

Fast forward to my 30th. I told my friends a number of times I didn't want to do anything and that if they were even considering a surprise party, there'd be murder. Despite my wishes, they threw a surprise party a couple of weeks before the actual date to throw me off the scent. Great friends, eh? Even though we were at a restaurant, I swore like the scrubber that I am and loudly called them every colourful name under the sun before storming out and getting a cab home.

As unhealthy as it is, I have never forgiven them, because I had my first major panic attack on that day and still get them in the lead up to and on every birthday since. Now I just turn off my phone and hide from the world in the foetal position, eating junk food and watching movies or listening to music to try stop the horrific anxiety that consumes me at that time of the year.

Slowly getting better with it, but it's not easy.

Anyway, happy belated birthday. Hope yours get better as the years go by. :)

Renee said...

I laughed out loud for most of this post - not at you but because it sounds exactly like my fam and my birthday every year. although my fam are prone to pre Big Occasion Fighting - it all occurs in the event lead up :)