One of the earliest birthdays that I can remember was my third birthday. I am not sure which cake I had but as you’ll hear later I was pretty crazy about cats. So the two most likely cakes that I had this year were either shaped as a gray and white fluffy cat with a pink tongue and bright blue eyes or it was a three dimensional Winnie the Pooh cake. When I say three-dimensional I mean that it literally stood up right and was Winnie the Pooh holding a honey pot. I know, amazing!

I remember that this is when it hit me that Ophelia’s life had been much different before I came along. Ophelia must have been six or seven years old at the time and up until three years prior she pretty much had the market cornered on birthdays. This was the first birthday where I was able to open up my very own presents. I didn’t quite comprehend the whole idea of getting presents and I certainly wasn’t old enough to ask for anything or have any friends that would attend the party that my parents threw me. So, needless to say, it wasn’t like this birthday should hold any weight in my memories.

I am not sure if Rowen and Genevieve had the day off or if we celebrated it on a different day but mother, father and Ophelia were all present. This event was also recorded but I haven’t watched it in decades because the tape is buried somewhere deep amid the VHS tapes, that no one ever seems to want to watch, at my family’s abode. I remember Ophelia handing me a present to open. However, the poor girl couldn’t contain her excitement and began opening the present for me. Not knowing any better I just let her have at it and open the present. It wasn’t until she had destroyed half of the wrapping paper that I realized our mother was displeased with her. Genevieve kept telling her to let me open my own presents and I suddenly realized that this was the first birthday Ophelia had where someone else would be opening his or her own presents. Sure Ophelia had friends but there seemed to be some distinction in her mind between these people and her younger sibling.

As Ophelia ripped off the rest of the wrapping paper I gazed upon a shoebox and I thought what could possibly be in this? Did she get me shoes?

“Well go on and open it.” said Ophelia.

I slowly pealed the lid off of the shoebox and sifted through some white tissue paper only to discover an older pair of blue converse roller blades. I had seen these roller blades before and they had once belonged to Ophelias’ best friend Annabelle. In fact just the weekend before Ophelia had been asking Annabelle if she could have them because she wanted them for herself.

That’s right! Ophelia was using her three-year old sisters’ birthday to get a gift that she wanted. No, she couldn’t possibly be doing that, right? However, my hunch was confirmed when she quickly dragged me out to the garage and into driveway where she proceeded to put my new roller blades on… Ophelia then proceeded to roll around the driveway showing me all of the cool things that her new present could do. I expressed interest in trying to use these new roller blades so Ophelia politely took them off and handed them over. I pulled the used but new to us roller blades on and they most certainly did not fit. As you can imagine these roller blades were about three to four sizes larger than my tiny feet. Ophelia attempted to help me lace them and then stood me up so that I could sort of roll around the garage. After discovering they did not fit me, were not effective, and were therefore no fun I took them off. Ophelia, without a moment’s hesitation then put them back on her feet and proceeded to roll around in them until it was time to head to my “party”.

Our father carried me into the building on his shoulders as usual. This was a strange place that we had never been before full of fun things. There were tiny cars that you could scoot around on in a maze, ball pits, an obstacle course, an area with tiny trampolines, and many more things for children to do. I remember not being able to do much else besides ride around on the tiny cars in the maze due to my age and height. I was very wary of other adults and children so I asked my father to come with me. Rowen did not join me and neither did Genevieve, however, I could see them from the sidelines because Rowen was taller than the mazes fence. Rowen was holding a camera and I could hear Ophelia in the background asking him to come watch her in the obstacle course slash ball pit slash anything that didn’t include focusing on me. I remember having a frown on my face because I realized that much of my life might be like this exact moment. I think that in the videotape Rowen even said something about how much I looked like a little rain cloud because of my frown, which was and is still one of his favorite things to say to me. Sometimes the type of cloud changes: rain, storm, or thunder but it is always a reference to my disheartening demeanor.

I realized that I simply wanted the day to end when I threw my shoes into a cubbyhole and attempted to make my way up the obstacle course. I was running after Ophelia who was having a grand time with the other children in the obstacle course. However, Ophelia either didn’t hear me or didn’t care that I was so far behind her and she sprinted up the obstacle course without me. Unfortunately, no matter how hard or fast I tried to run up this stupid slippery obstacle course I could not get enough momentum to get up the damn thing! Once I did finally gain enough momentum I reached a rope bridge but was too small to crawl across it so I kept slipping through the holes, which were oddly the same size as a small three-year old. I finally passed this obstacle only to reach the holy grail of all activities: the ball pit. However, Ophelia had already made it through the obstacle course and was impatiently complaining about leaving… So the ball pit was no longer an option despite the harrowing trek I had made to arrive there.

Ophelia, Genevieve and Rowen began calling after me with impatience in their voices. I couldn’t make it through the rest of the obstacle course in time so I made the choice to head back the way I came. All of the larger kids sneered at me telling me how stupid I was and that I was going the wrong direction. It took forever to get past the rope bridge and was even more difficult to make my way back down the entrance to the obstacle course, which was now crowded with children clambering to get to the ball pit. This birthday was supposed to be special and it was not because it was most certainly not about me at all.