But Birthdays have been a pretty miserable time most of my life. They've either been completely without any kind of celebratory anything, or else turned out badly. There was a single exception to this.

Now, while the first few birthdays I don't remember exactly, I have vague "snapshot" pictures in my brain of some things that I've had explained to me over the years. WARNING! Some of this stuff is pretty horrible, and may trigger people with any kind of sensitivity to child abuse, rape, etc.

I know you all won't believe me, so here's a list:

• 1976 - Age 1 (One)
  I'm told that my father sat me in a corner for crying and waited until I fell over and sat there laughing at me.
• 1977 - Age 2 (Two)
  Apparently there was a scary incident involving my grandmother being drunk, and deciding that just because my twin sister and I were having a birthday, it was no reason we couldn't be made the entertainment. She had great fun setting the dog on us while we huddled in the middle of our playpen, until an uncle rescued us, kicked the dog, and took us back home to his house until Mom got home from work.
• 1978 - Age 3 (Three)
  I was informed by my grandmother that I was a filthy Jap and that no Jap ever amounted to anything.
• 1979 - Age 4 (Four)
  I was informed that I couldn't play with my twin sister on the playground because boys don't play with girls. I was then further informed by the boys there that they didn't want a crybaby playing with them. I was relegated to the exile of the sandbox, where all the outcasts wind up. My twin sister leaves the girls to sit with me, in spite of my telling her it's okay, that it's not fair for her not to have fun because of me.
• 1980 - Age 5 (Five)
  My grandmother informs me that if it were up to her, I'd have been hung from a tree and beaten with a ball bat years ago. That at least my twin sister is useful, since she can be someone's wife someday. She then decides that she's tired of hearing our complaints, and sends the two of us to the bedroom without lunch.
• 1981 - Age 6 (Six)
  My twin sister and I get to have our very first birthday party. My best friend can't make it due to measles. My twin sister has 6 kids from school show up. They all express dismay that I'm there. I go and sit in my room and read while they play games and have ice cream. My twin sister sneaks a bowl in to me.
• 1982 - Age 7 (Seven)
  I am woke up by the belt, as I wasn't up to make my grandmother's coffee. I make the coffee, and breakfast, and ask if I can do my chores (dishes, feeding my grandmother's dogs, dusting the living room, sweeping off the porch -- not unreasonable) after getting home from the circus/carnival in town, which my best friend invited me to go to as a birthday treat. Nope. Finish them before you go. When I was finished, it was too late and my best friend and her parents had already left. My twin sister took my ticket and went, at my urging. Her chores were fewer and easier because, "girls shouldn't have to work as hard as boys," and she finished quickly.
• 1983 - Age 8 (Eight)
  Most of my cousins realize that even though it's my birthday, their parents and our grandmother won't say anything to them if they kick me, punch me, bite me, push me down, and generally make me miserable as long as my mother or grandfather doesn't witness it or hear about it. My twin sister is ineffective in stopping them. She eventually goes to get my best friend for the "party" time and she then gets her father to stop it. Tells me and my twin sister to let Mom know what happened after the ice cream. We're threatened with, "more of the same," if we do once he and his daughter (my best friend) have departed.
• 1984 - Age 9 (Nine)
  My grandmother decides that I'm lying to her about something and will "beat" the truth out of me. She moves from hand, to switch, to belt, to paddle, to crowbar before realizing that I had been telling the truth, that I had done nothing wrong. She asserts that I would do something eventually that would deserve, "a lickin'," and makes no apology even. Yells at me to, "stop whining and bawling and go get cleaned up," and I had better not have ruined those pants. My twin sister cleans and dresses my cuts and bruises, and sews the hole in my pants up so that our grandmother wouldn't notice.
• 1985 - Age 10 (Ten)
  My twin sister is invited to a sleep-over for our birthday, and allowed to go. I'm told that I can have one of my cousins over. No, I don't get to choose which. Joe (age 26 [Twenty-Six]) arrives to play cards with me around 4pm. My grandmother informs my mother that Joe will be living with us for awhile. That night, I'm molested and anally penetrated for the first time.
• 1986 - Age 11 (Eleven)
  Joe arranges for my twin sister to get to go on a trip with a friend to the ballet in St. Louis. That night, is my first time being forced to perform fellatio.
• 1987 - Age 12 (Twelve)
  I managed to sneak out of the house and over to my best friend's house, and we went fishing in the creek about 2 miles from our neighborhood. Upon returning home, I'm informed that I'm now grounded for the next two months and not allowed to see said best friend outside of school (which wouldn't start for 3 weeks).
• 1988 - Age 13 (Thirteen)
  My twin sister and I are visiting our father in Hawaii. First time we've seen him since we were 5, our parents having separated then and divorced 2 years after that. We both get caught in the current the day before our birthday and spend the entire day asleep, worn out from the frantic paddling we'd had to do to get back to the beach. We wake up at dinnertime to find out that our father had left a note that he was sorry but hadn't been able to get off work, ANYWAY. Twins becoming teenagers. Twins he hadn't seen in 8 years at all. Twins that had he shown the slightest interest in would likely have decided that they wanted to stay despite not really knowing him.
• 1989 - Age 14 (Fourteen)
  Big family to-do -- not just for our birthday, as there are 15 relatives (uncle [same one what rescued us from the dog at age 2], cousins, and second-cousins) that share the same birthday. I was chased by a group wanting to "dogpile" me and when caught am knocked down against a glass Mountain Dew bottle. Knee required 27 stitches -- found out 3 years later that there was also a dime-sized piece of glass sewn up inside me. It was the last birthday that my grandfather was alive for -- one of the few I had for emotional support.
• 1990 - Age 15 (Fifteen)
  I was caught by an uncle, my grandmother, and my younger sister dressed in my twin sister's clothes. She was marched in and asked how much the outfit cost, where she'd gotten all of it. She didn't realize how bad it was going to be, and so told them. I'm made to pay her for the clothes that she had loaned me for our secret birthday get together with friends later that day. Then I'm kicked, slapped, belted, beaten with a two-by-four (2 x 4), spit on and even PISSED on for long enough that my own bladder and colon give way, and then made to sit on the back porch and not allowed to clean up or change or anything for the next 7 hours. My twin sister is told she's not allowed to tell any of our friends anything other than I decided not to go. They all knew it was a lie, and when she had left with them, told them the truth. They were too scared of my family to circle back for me, though. Last birthday my twin sister was there for, and the night I discovered the self-harm practice of Cutting.
• 1991 - Age 16 (Sixteen)
  Most kids in the U.S. get to go take their driving test on their sixteenth birthday. I had spent the past year alone due to my twin sister becoming Emancipated. I spent that day waiting for her to call. I spent that day also doing every bit of house cleaning that would normally be considered a once-a-year, or Spring Cleaning job, until I was so worn out I went to bed.
• 1992 - Age 17 (Seventeen)
  The one good one I was talking about. I was away at a very geeky summer camp (Missouri Scholars' Academy) and there were no beatings, no insults. I was wished a Happy Birthday by more than my mother, twin sister, and small inner circle of friends for the first time in my life. And these people were sincere. My RA bought me a new hardcover novel (Fractal Mode, by Piers Anthony), the Camp Directors and Faculty/Staff had taken one of my stories and had it bound (was about a 45-page story), and the kitchen staff let me pick the menu for the day.
• 1993 - Age 18 (Eighteen)
  My grandmother very nearly convinces my mother and stepfather that I'm in a cult and that she can take care of it. I am left alone locked in the closet in my grandmother's apartment for two days with no food, water, or even a pot to use the bathroom in.
• 1994 - Age 19 (Nineteen)
  Just a few weeks prior to this birthday, the events [ here ] took place. My mother was in mourning, and I was preparing to leave for college, and so my birthday consisted of me trying to keep from just unloading on my mother about all the stuff she never knew about grandma and how evil she was.
• 1995 - Age 20 (Twenty)
  I spent this birthday in the hospital connected to several machines trying to keep me alive after my first (of five) pulmonary embolisms.
• 1996 - Age 21 (Twenty-One)
  Being told that having my stomach pumped for food poisoning wasn't a good enough excuse to miss work and being fired.
• 1997 - Age 22 (Twenty-Two)
  I don't know. I really don't. This was only weeks before the events that inspired [ this ]. The disaster that led to the death of someone who meant more to me than life. The only good thing about this time period was that it led to the reconciliation of my twin sister and I.
• 1998 - Age 23 (Twenty-Three)
  Unremarkable. Worked on all three jobs.
• 1999 - Age 24 (Twenty-Four)
  Homeless. Hopeless. Helpless. Friendless. In Omaha.
• 2000 - Age 25 (Twenty-Five)
  Fired for the theft that I helped foil. I stopped the guy, so obviously I didn't follow company guidelines.
• 2001 - Age 26 (Twenty-Six)
  Had to return to my hometown to take care of my mother. Nearly committed suicide. Thrice.
• 2002 - Age 27 (Twenty-Seven)
  Moved to Detroit, and had to deal with a District Manager whose statement when confronted with the fact of my intersexuality was, "Well, you know I'm not prejudiced -- I'm black."
• 2003 - Age 28 (Twenty-Eight)
  My roommates remembered my birthday at 3 minutes to midnight -- not the night before, the night of. My family hadn't remembered, either. I got a call from my mother and from my twin sister.
• 2004 - Age 29 (Twenty-Nine)
  Arrested for "acting suspicious" on my way home from work. I was walking. This is suspicious in Detroit, apparently -- after all, it's Motor City.
• 2005 - Age 30 (Thirty)
  Double shift at work, followed by coming home to find out that my roommate had moved out while I was working... and taken nearly everything I owned... and hadn't paid bills or rent in 3 months. And eviction was in 2 days.
• 2006 - Age 31 (Thirty-One)
  In the hospital. Had been there for nearly 2 months at that point.
• 2007 - Age 32 (Thirty-Two)
  I sat alone in my room without a birthday wish from any but my twin sister -- my mother didn't have a phone.

*sigh*