I enjoy holidays -- it's no secret. I like the rare satisfaction of having everyone back in one place for a weekend or -- for a really good holiday -- maybe even a whole week. I like drinking with friends and staying out late and having a good opportunity to take spontaneous trips. Not that I usually do, BUT YOU NEVER KNOW DAMN IT!
Since high school, however, there is a handful of holidays that have been statistically unpleasant each year. It just so happens, of course, that these are the same holidays that grow more and more insufferably popular among my peers each fucking year. Exhibit A: St. Patty's Day.
Most people that wear green on St. Patty's day are not Irish and I'm convinced it's mostly a large conspiracy for college students to get drunk and cheat on their significant others or some other debauchery. In high school, St. Patty's was fine. I'd find a friend equally impassioned about underage alcohol possession, we'd turn some watermelon Smirnoff Ice into the best green beer in the world, and success was achieved. After high school, however, I was promptly deported to college, where I was two years younger than everyone else in my grade. The people I dated were older, the people I was friends with were older, and not one of them was interested in, say, drinking their green beer at someone's apartment where I too could join. The problem didn't stop there, however.
Even after I turned 21, some mysterious power of the universe has seemed to come between me and a good time on each of the two St. Patty's days since -- and by this I mean, I have been alone pretending I have something important to study for because ITS A STUPID HOLIDAY ANYWAY and I'm not Irish so whatever.
Exhibit B: Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo is kind of similar to St. Patty's except that, in addition simply being underage/unentertained, I have experienced some kind of semi-poignant emotional turmoil on May 5th for the past few years. Someone does something offensive or hurtful or straight-up ridiculous every year and I end up hanging out with whoever is kind enough to about 15 minutes of my ranting. The unpleasantness is, of course, totally unrelated to the holiday at hand -- but the fact that someone has felt the inexplicable urge to do something really unadmirable each year on that day since I was about 19 has started to take a toll on my subconscious interpretation of Cinco de Mayo.
Exhibit C (I saved the best[?] for last): FOURTH OF JULY OMG.
Every fourth of July since I turned 18, I have cried. I have basically curled up and bawled, which isn't typical for me, and sat numbly as the fireworks shattered across the river. Last Fourth of July was especially horrific. I was supposed to go to this yearly Fourth of July party (which, for the record, is entirely pleasant in and of itself), and, as with many things, parties are wont to turn into the seventh circle of hell very quickly if you've gotten the emotional equivalent of swift kick to the stomach with a steel-toed boot. I spent about five consecutive hours trying ineffectively to smile perkily at near-strangers.
In hindsight, these problems were all partly my fault. I let the wrong people have too much influence over me and I let my definition of happiness become way, way too narrow (and somehow I tended to reap the consequences most noticably on three particular days each year). It's a small personal goal to regain these young-people-drinking-holidays and possibly enjoy them a little like so many others do. This year's St. Patty's, for example, passed without incident. I didn't do anything to celebrate per se, but I certainly wasn't unhappy. And while that's a pretty miniscule step for everyone else in the nation, it's an incomprehensibly giant leap for me.
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