the birthday project: hocus pocus, caitlin's five.

In today's installment of the birthday project, we travel back to the days of Cabbage Patch Kids, and machine-knit kitten sweaters.

I turned five on June 24th, 1985. We had just sold our house on Holton and were gearing up for a move even further east, to Huxley Avenue, to the house where most of my important moments over the next twenty-odd years would take place. I didn't know that yet, though. I just knew that we were moving, and that I wouldn't have to take the bus to school anymore. (During the previous year, my mom, who didn't drive yet, bused and taxied me and my baby brother across town every day to the nearest French Immersion school, so that I'd be able to get into the French senior kindergarten class the following year. She is fucking hardcore.)

Most of our stuff was already packed, so I remember my party taking place in a room with sheets covering the remaining furniture and floors. The way it looks in my memory is a lot like how the house looked at the end of the series Growing Pains, nearly empty but for a few inexplicably-as-yet-unpacked family photos and trinkets.

My parents hired a magician for this party. As was my custom for most of my childhood and adolescence (and, who are we kidding, adulthood too), I had a complete and utter meltdown as soon as the attention was on me. I listened to most of the magic show from the confines of my upstairs bedroom. Before every trick, the magician had everyone shout out the magic words, "Hocus Pocus, Caitlin's Five!" to which I would scream "SHUT UUUUUUP!" from behind closed doors.

I'm sure there was also a cake, somewhere. Maybe hidden under a sheet.