This week my best friend disappointed me.  I felt hurt, sad and really angry all at the same time.  Actually, I was beyond angry.  I was livid.  This whole week, I’ve been catching myself feeling resentful and bitter about what happened.  Perhaps my anger was magnified due to the fact that Wednesday was my birthday.  It probably stung that much more because someone I loved so much bailed on my during my ‘birthday week,’ if that makes any sense at all.  The reason I’m sharing this with you is because being angry hurts no one but yourself.  That’s a lesson I had to learn a long time ago; It’s a lesson I too soon forgot.

This year, my birthday fell on a weekday; and a bad day to top it off.  It fell on a Wednesday and my schedule was full of things I didn’t particularly want to do.  Class, class, meeting, meeting, class, etc.  Usually, I plan ahead and make sure things don’t happen outside of ‘Happy B-PAX Birthday Land,’ but this year it was unavoidable.

As the day came to a close I just wanted to relax, skip my night class, and have a drink.  Then I look down and see a text from my mom, “Where are you?”  I wondered why my mother was texting me since she lives in Palestine, Texas (about 2 hours away).  I soon came to find she was wandering around campus in the dark looking for her poor child-me.

I tell my friend Jared to hop in the car and ride with me, while I search the campus for my poor lost mother.  I eventually find her standing in the middle of Dyer Street in front of Hughes-Trigg waving at a car that she thinks is me.  All the while, two of my friends are looking on wondering which mental hospital my mother escaped from.  I’m joking, of course.  She was just lost and it happens to the best of us.

So, I find her, pick her up, and start driving to the nearest restaurant that serves alcohol.  I’m of age, you know.  Then my mom asks what my father is doing tonight.  This is a man that she has been feuding with since I was nine.  My parents usually act like a couple of psycho kittens thrown in a bag together, eager to try out their claws; that’s putting it lightly.  Divorce is ugly.

So, I get the bright idea to call my dad up and invite him to dinner with me, my mom and my friend who’s along for the ride.  After some heavy duty sighing and whining over the phone, using the most pathetic and moronic of child-like persuasion like “C’mon, it’s my berfday!,” he reluctantly agrees.  All the while, I’m sure he’s wondering how this charade will end.

Much to my surprise, we end up at On the Border and five minutes in, everyone is still alive.  No swords were drawn and no blood was shed.  It was a miracle.  Just when I thought this nuclear family get-together couldn’t get more miraculous, my boyfriend calls and says he can make it to dinner because he got out of work early.

My mind’s racing, “If my gay boyfriend comes over will all of the dark forces of the underworld be let loose on this once-of-a-lifetime birthday bliss?”  “Yeah, probably,” I think.  So I invite him.

Jonathan comes over and is treated with nothing but smiles.  Both of my parents, who have shown disdain towards the relationship in the past, are unbelievably kind and genuinely friendly.  I start to look around and wonder if I’m dreaming or there has been a case of ‘invasion of the body snatchers.’  WOW!  This is a good night.

We all sit at the table and have a round of margaritas, while my mom has her martini.  We all laughed and my dad regaled everyone at the table like a stand up routine.  

It was all good fun and laughs, then someone mentioned the bible.  “Sweet Jesus!,” I thought, and then it began…

Brent Paxton is a junior political science and international relations double major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].