For as long as I can remember I have hated my birthday. Most memories of past birthdays are marked by disappointment, sadness, loneliness, and the lingering question of “Why bother?” From as far back as my teenage years all I can remember is the rejection I felt after inviting the people I thought were friends to my birthdays (or any party celebrating me) and only 1 or 2 showing up. That trend followed me well into adulthood. It stung even more to see those same people being able to have big celebrations for their birthdays and the people who wouldn’t show up for me would show up for them. So around my late 20’s, I vowed never to set myself up for that kind of disappointment again.
The only time afterward that I made birthday plans was when I decided to take solo international trips. No one else can disappoint me that way, right? Wrong. My last birthday trip was solo in the first half and my now ex joined me in the second half. It was already a rough trip because I developed a terrible sinus infection and was going through a mental health crisis. Then the second half was spent arguing with and walking on ex shells with my ex. I pulled as many positive moments from it as I could, but it really cemented how I had already felt about my birthday. It’s nothing to celebrate and to attempt it is to set myself up.
Another reason I hate my birthday is because I never planned to live this long. I feel that I’m being punished for surviving. While I know that I now have true friends who love me and will come through. I can’t shake those memories of waiting for people to show up and being stood up time after time. I’m content with just receiving “Happy Birthday” messages and gifts now.
There’s also the fact that every birthday feels like I’m grieving a life that I wanted but couldn’t have once I became disabled as a teen. I’m not the successful doctor that I wanted to be. I barely made it through undergrad after 8 years. I’m not independent. I have to live on social security. I’m not the energetic, smart, talented person who could do anything anymore and I haven’t been that in a long time.
Each birthday highlights that grief more and more. My birthday feels like the anniversary of a death more than anything. Every year I am reminded that so much of what I wanted to accomplish can’t be had because the woman who should have accomplished them doesn’t exist anymore. I dreamed too big as a child and now the space where my dreams were is a graveyard of the things I was. All the failures. All the missed opportunities. All the things I’ll never have or be able to do.
So when I say I don’t want to celebrate my birthday. I’m not throwing a pity party and compliment fishing. My birthday is legitimately triggering a lot of wounds that never fully healed and probably never will.
Let me know what you think