I Hid From My Own 19th Birthday Party
My dorm mates had fun anyway
Thumping mid-1980s dance music made my door shake as the inhabitants of my college dormitory and various friends of theirs partied into the night. The party was for my nineteenth birthday, but I was not partying with them in the tiny dorm lounge outside my first floor room.
I was sitting on my bed, hiding alone, except for every thirty minutes when my roommate burst in to yell at me to, “Go to your own party! You’re being stupid!” But I thought the whole event was stupid.
I’d only started college three months before, and I did not even know most of the party guests. The party was not my idea. It kind of snowballed as different dorm mates got wind of the fact that my December birthday was in a few days, early enough in the month that we wouldn’t be studying for final exams or being one another’s “Secret Santa” quite yet.
“I don’t need a party.” I surely must have said to several of them.
“Oh, come on! It’ll be fun!” I’m sure most of them said back.
The sad thing was, I didn’t have a plausible excuse to not have a dorm party. My family had absolutely nothing planned for the day.
My parents and sister were a twenty minute drive away, but it was made clear to me that, as I would be…
