Two Birthdays

This week we read "Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa" by Eric Sedaris. In it, Sedaris describes his normal life in America as well as his partner's exotic and unusual childhood growing up in various African nations. In it he talks about how jealous he was of Hugh because compared to his own life, it was very interesting. Sedaris envied the life of Hugh because it was foreign to him even though Hugh's childhood had many drawbacks Sedaris was unaware of as a child. As humans, we always want what we don't or cannot have. We are able to see the positive aspects of something and look past everything else. For example, this might sound really stupid...because it is. When I was younger, I used to think my friends with divorced parents had the life. They had two of everything: Christmas, birthday, house, bedroom, you name it, there was one from the mom and one from the dad. I thought that children of divorce were the luckiest kids alive because everthing was duplicated at each of their parents houses. I was able to look at only the very small cool part of having two birthdays and forget the daily struggle of dealing with separated parents. I wanted two birthdays and I was jealous of them but now I know that children of divorce would much rather trade in one of their birthdays for a stable household. We foolishly want what we don't have without seeing the struggles and hardships people like Hugh or children of divorce experience everyday.