So many people don’t understand why I don’t celebrate my birthday. Not only do I avoid celebrating it, I don’t even want to be acknowledged by others. I want to simply fly under the radar, going unnoticed and forgotten. I posted this on Facebook recently, explaining my mentality, but it made sense to share it here, too. If I’m going to offer an insight into my world, I can not hide from this.
I never had a birthday party with friends, and my mom used to tell the story of how my grandmother cried for hours, after receiving photos of my 7th birthday, where my only attendees were dolls I had lined up at the table. I was a lonely kid, a thinker who preferred books to people. And it was around that same age, when I determined my life’s value. While other kids in my class were mastering multiplication tables and long division, I was pondering life’s greater meanings and my role in the world.
Birthdays are acknowledged, because we want to celebrate the day a person entered the world. We give gifts, to honor them, and feast on sweets, in celebration of the wonderful event that occurred on that particular day years ago.
But for me, I didn’t see how that would apply to my life. I was constantly bullied in school and not entirely happy at home. As a second grader, I felt it an absurd idea to celebrate an event–my birth–which so many people seemed to find regrettable. Although I didn’t quite understand contraceptives or their ability to fail at the time, I was aware I was an “accident”, a child my parents hadn’t intended on having. That, and the constant rejection from other kids, led me to the conclusion my existence was unwanted, and therefore, my birth that initiated it was not cause for any type of celebration.
The following year, when I turned 8, my father spontaneously grabbed the back of my head and forcibly smashed my face in my own cake. As he laughed with my brother and mom, who eagerly snapped photos, it simply validated my belief no one really cared, I was just a mockery to them, and any acknowledgment of my birthday was a mere formality. Birthdays are only meant to be celebrated in an act of gratitude that an individual has entered the world, and this didn’t apply to me.
From that moment on, I hated my birthday. Any acknowledgment of it seemed forcibly contrived, an obligatory nod of my existence so they could celebrate my brother, the child they wanted, a month later.
And I lived this way for the next 26 years, until I had a new reason to hate it.
In 2014, my mom and I knew her time was very limited, though the rest of the family was steadfast in their denials and refusals to see what was right in front of them. Throughout her cancer journey, she had fallen in love with gospel group Ernie Haase & Signature Sound, and going to their concerts was a joyous occasion that got her through the roughest of times. As much as she loved the guys in the group, they reciprocated and made her feel special. They took the time to email and call her, and singled her out at shows with extra kindness. And as my birthday neared, one of her sisters invited her to an EHSS concert near her lake house in Alabama. They would make an extended trip out of it, a week or two, and invite all of Mom’s nieces and nephews from Louisiana to spend time with her.
But Mom didn’t want to go, because she wanted to spend my birthday with me. She and I knew there wouldn’t be another opportunity; Death was inching closer by the day. And as much as I wanted her with me, I felt it was more important she go on the trip. Just as there would be no more birthdays, I knew there would be no more opportunities for her to see EHSS or visit with her nieces and nephews.
No matter how much I begged for her to go on the trip, she refused. Finally, I saw I had no choice and spoke those horrible, awful words:
“You and I spend all day together,” I told her, feigning annoyance. “We stare at each other all day, every day. If you want to do something nice for me, let me have this ONE DAY to myself, where I don’t have to look at you all day! I DON’T WANT YOU HERE! I want to be alone, can’t you see that? GEEZ!”
Before I stormed off dramatically to my room, to make my act more convincing, I caught a glimpse of her face that remains with me today.
The pain in her eyes was immense. I had just told my dying mother I didn’t want to be with her for the last birthday we’d have together. My words were cruel and had broken her heart in the harshest way.
Once safely behind my closed door, I cried for hours.
Another “grand” birthday in the books.
But Mom went on the trip and came back saying it was the best concert she had been to yet and raved of all the fun things she did with her sisters, nieces, and nephews. What I said to her was never spoken of, ever.
Two months later, she slipped into the coma she would never awaken from.
I kept the burden of breaking my mom’s heart to myself, up until a year or two ago, when I finally confessed to AV, her eldest sister. She was convinced my mom knew exactly what I was doing. “The pain you saw in her eyes wasn’t because of what you said,” AV tried explaining to me at the time. “She was hurt because you were in a position where you had to make that decision at all. She knew you didn’t mean it. She was hurt, because she saw you were hurt.”
Maybe. But I guess we’ll never really know, will we?
I explained all of these things to my therapist today, crying in the process, much like I am now, writing it out.
“My birthday just sucks,” I summarized. “It’s never been something I enjoyed, and the thing with my mom just finished it off for me. It’s never been a happy occasion.”
And maybe that’s where the story should end…but it doesn’t. Because driving around after therapy, running errands, I started thinking more about it.
I have a certain circle of friends that refuses to give up on me. I would be perfectly content not being acknowledged on that day at all. In fact, I’d prefer it that way. But there are some who refuse to abide by this, offering happy wishes or taking me out to lunch. And while I’m not crazy about the idea, I also stopped getting upset by their efforts.
I think back to my 7 year old self: “birthdays are celebrated, when you want to show that person you’re glad they came into this world”. For most of my life, this didn’t apply to me. But if these people who care about me are willing to try celebrating me, then maybe, finally, I’m something to someone. Maybe no one was really happy I existed back then, save for my mom, but clearly, they are now. And while a cupcake and a smile isn’t going to undo decades of damage, I’m starting to change the mindset.
I still hate my birthday. I still prefer to be forgotten. I still won’t ever tell anyone new to my life what day it is, because I still don’t want to be acknowledged.
But I no longer resent those who try to change the narrative I’ve held on to for so many years. I don’t think 7 year old Me was wrong. But if I apply the same logic to my life now, it makes me realize just how much some people really do love me.
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