How Do You Feel About Your Birthday?
How Do You Feel About Your Birthday?
Because mine's coming up and I feel pretty deflated.
My birthday is coming up this weekend. I have no plans to celebrate it. This is part of a larger problem of having no plans in general, but for now, I’m just going to focus on my looming, plan-less birthday.
It often, but not always, falls on Labor Day weekend, which poses its own set of challenges of restaurants closed and friends out of town. But even if my birthday fell on a less desolate weekend, I probably still wouldn’t be doing anything.
Holidays stress me out because there’s so much pressure to do something. On holidays, I usually feel left out — like my plans aren’t good enough and everyone else is doing something better and more holiday-worthy. I feel similarly about my birthday.
I’ve gone through several evolutions on how I feel about the day of my birth, but here’s the gist:
I love being the center of attention, being celebrated, and receiving gifts — and my annual free birthday drink at Starbucks. I hate the pressure to do something *amazing* and the inevitable disappointment that my birthday generally brings up. And I’ve had some pretty disappointing birthdays, starting at the age of eight when my father, newly divorced, skipped my birthday dinner to go on a date. (Trust me when I say he has never lived this down — I just reminded him about this truly terrible decision he made over 40 years ago earlier this week!)
With no plans this year, and the restaurant that I want to go to for my birthday dinner with my mom closed for the holiday, I’ll probably spend the day doing my favorite things — reading and journaling at Starbucks (while sipping my free birthday drink!), and maybe going to a yoga class if I can find a yoga studio that’s open that day, but that’s optimistic. The problem I’ve been having with my “favorite things” lately is that I’ve been doing them for so long that they’ve become mundane and aren’t nearly as enjoyable as they used to be.
To understand where my birthday ambivalence came from — and it came from somewhere! — here’s a quick look back at my best and worst birthdays ever.