It's my birthday today! I'm 13 years old. I'm officially a teenager!

Goodbye, childhood! Goodbye toys, goodbye imaginary friend called Gruddly, and good riddance to dresses! Seriously, I hate wearing dresses. (I'll explain why in a later post.)

I can't believe it's my first time writing in a diary. It's like they think I'm a teenager who has to write in a book. In case you haven't noticed, we have LiveJournal, so there's no need for me to have a diary. (Plus, I'm not going to be like those silly little girls on those TV shows who say "dear diary this" and "dear diary that". They can give me a diary, but I'm not going to use it.) Also, do people write in diaries anymore? Are diaries old-fashioned? I'm just saying.

Anyway, it's time for you to know who I am. I'm Jedidiah Marcus Anthony Hamilton, the son of Edwin and Lucinda Hamilton. My twin sister is Jemima and my younger brother is Kieran. (There's also my cousin Reginald, but he lives with us because his mother is crazy. But let's not start.) Our family claims descent from some famous German person, but I refuse to reveal who that is in case some jerk wants to say I'm related to Adolf Hitler. (By the way, I hate Hitler, not just for what he did to the Jews, but for the fact that he made Germans everywhere look bad in front of the world.)

I live in the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Our house is a typical house, with a white-picket fence. I am an all-American boy with blonde hair, white skin, and blue eyes. My interests include techno music, science fiction and fantasy novels, live-action role-playing, MMORPGs, bad movies, and medieval history. I'm not particularly fond of the following: snakes, musicals, pop stars, Shakespeare, pictures of animals with humorous captions (also known as memes), and ballroom dancing.

Yet, that's not all I am.

In fact, there's more to me than you think.

For example, I'm the guy who can figure out a math problem faster than the class genius and outdo most tenth graders when it comes to algebra. I can remember everything I've read, even if the story in question doesn't fit my age range or gender. Plus, I'm notorious for tuning people out whenever they want to talk about the latest Disney movie or what song they like that's playing on the radio or what cartoons they like to watch on TV. It really annoys me when people describe a certain movie or TV show as their "childhood", as if their childhood could be defined by what they saw on TV.

FYI, the dictionary describes the word childhood as this: "the period of time when a person is a child, usually between the ages of 3-12 years".

That's all. The dictionary says nothing about TV shows, movies, video games, or pop culture events. That's not what childhood is about.

Don't believe me? Let me tell you something: my childhood consisted of years spent in Hebrew school as well as in theater school. (My sister will kill you if you tell her that I'm a better actor than she is.) Plus, there were the annual trips to Grammie's house in Vermont every summer and 13 years’ worth of Hanukkah and Passover celebrations. That's what my childhood was about.

In short, I didn't have time to watch TV or play video games. But I did read a lot, which caused me a degree of trouble, especially with the kids who thought that reading was a waste of time, time that could be spent watching dumb shows on TV. (My mom hates TV and doesn't allow me or my sister to watch TV, not even when we're over our friends' houses.)

Anyway, as for the toys, mom made tons of toys for us, as she doesn't trust the toy stores to give her what she wants us to play with. Plus, she didn't allow video games in the house for the same reason she doesn't like TV.

But enough about that.

I did go through the imaginary friends phase with a purple winged creature named Gruddly, but that upset my dad a lot, as he had an older brother who hasn't grown out of that phase. After discovering Gruddly one evening, he told me that it was a bad idea to talk to creatures that no one could see and I needed to give him up immediately or I would never be able to grow up properly.

Of course, I was eight years old at the time; what kid didn't have an imaginary friend at eight years old? I mean, other kids had imaginary friends and they turned out OK. But dad wasn't about to hear that, not when he brings up Uncle Zachary's case every time someone says what kids do is normal.

Mom could care less about who I spoke to, but Jem got on my case about Gruddly, saying to me, "AM I THAT BORING THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE TO MAKE UP AN IMAGINARY FRIEND AND HANG OUT WITH HIM INSTEAD OF ME???"

I had said to her, "You're not boring, you're a girl. There's a difference."

Jem didn't let up, as she kept screaming, "ONLY PEOPLE WITH MENTAL DISABILITIES HAVE IMAGINARY FRIENDS!! DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO THINK YOU HAVE A MENTAL DISABILITY? DO YOU WANT TO END UP LIKE UNCLE ZACK, WHO NEVER LEAVES HIS ROOM BECAUSE HE HAS IMAGINARY FRIENDS???"

(To be fair, just because you have an imaginary friend doesn't mean you have a mental illness. Plus, it's cruel to assume that all mentally disabled people have imaginary friends. I don't know anyone with a mental illness, so let's not go there.)

To be honest, Jem can be a nightmare to be around, but I wouldn't replace her with all the imaginary friends in the world, not even if I wanted to. (And I did on several occasions.)

Trust me. She'd kill me if I did.

Anyway, with a childhood without TV, video games, or movies (and filled with Hebrew school), you may wonder how I could survive without those things that many of you take for granted. I never played with toy cars or trucks, as my dad thought that those toys would encourage me to adhere to the stereotype of boys being tough and insensitive to women. Mom, however, forced me to play with dolls, which I thought was silly, as I don't like dolls. Jem believed that girls should play with dolls and boys should play with action figures.

And don't get me started on mom forcing me to wear a dress, especially if it's the same dress that Jem wears. It's already bad enough that we're twins and only a few people could tell us apart, but we don't need to be the stereotypical twins that dress alike and like the same things.

That's why I have so much beef with movies featuring twins such as "The Parent Trap". (I'll get back to you about the movie.)

Anyway, for many years, Jem and I dressed alike, had the same haircuts, and shared a room. (When we were five years old, dad forced mom to give up her private sitting room to give me my own room, as he didn’t approve of me being in the same room as my sister.) We played with the same toys and had the same friends (which ended when we were eight years old and dad wanted us to have our own lives and our own friends).

Well, my younger brother was born when Jem and I were eight years old; contrary to how mom and dad raised me, Kieran cried whenever mom tried to stuff him into a dress or when dad gave him dolls to play with. He also cried whenever the Sabbath came and he wasn't allowed to be on the computer. Plus, he complained that I wasn't his brother, but just an additional sister.

In fact, he complained about that so much that mom cracked and eventually brought me some pants that boys wore.

Funny how life works sometimes.

So yes, I hated wearing dresses and having my hair as long as my sister. The other kids made fun of me for how I was raised, the fact that I liked reading and wasn't allowed to watch TV, and going to Hebrew school. I bet none of them had parents who told them what to do or what to wear.

But who cares about what they think?

Now that I'm 13 years old, I would have to put away my toys and grow up. I had to become a man. The world has no room for those who want to hold onto their childhood, as evidenced by mental hospitals that still exist all over this country. (Of course, Uncle Zach has been in one of those hospitals for the last two decades, beginning when he was 14 years old. That's why dad pressures me to "act my age".)

So here I am, at age 13, knowing that within a few days, I'll have to go through my bar mitzvah. That's the scary part. Once you go through that, you can't go back to who you once were.

That's the scariest part of all.

It's not that I don't want to grow up, but it's the fact that adults have been maligned in books and on TV. I could barely stomach stories about orphans, as I wonder why the main character in those stories has to be an orphan. Why can't they have parents? Is having parents so wrong? Come on, people! Let's not go there!

But I had to grow up and the sooner I did that, the better.

Now I have to put my childhood away and get ready to face the world as an adult. Was I up for this daunting task?

Anyhow, mom is calling me downstairs, as my birthday party is about to begin. I'll be back later!