Birthdays have become a bit of a mixed bag for me. Outwardly I pretend to love them, crafting carefully-curated wish lists for various friends and family (how easy can gift-giving be with a wish list?) and setting up dinners and lunch dates with the people who matter, but when I really think about it, and when I look back at my history all the way to childhood, I realize I’ve often gotten out of town for my birthday, as if somehow trying to escape from the day. Even when I stay home, I’ll often go out somewhere else like Lake George or the Berkshires or anywhere other than home. In my childhood, I’d request excursions to beaver sanctuaries or Great Escape to get away. It’s a realization that came to me when someone posted online that Virgos always cry on their birthday.
It struck me profoundly that I wasn’t alone in those feelings. Not that I cry every birthday – that is relatively rare – but there’s always been a melancholy undertow to the day, usually a result of disappointing expectations that are only and always in my head, and some careless behavior from others that somehow always manages to manifest on that particular day. And if you can’t get basic decency on your birthday, it does have a way of etching away at your self-worth over the years. (People are going to ask for receipts on this, but I’m done with hurting people with their own truths.)
Slowly, I’ve come to accept this, and I continue to try not to be such a spoiled, whiny brat in the face of all that hurts and stings, and that’s the goal for this and every year that follows. It’s just another day. Whether my birthday happened or not, whether I was here or not, it’s only ever going to be just another day. My life isn’t changing the world in any substantial way – most of our lives don’t. We want to think we matter – we want to think our story is the main story, the only story – but the truth is that we matter no more and no less than anyone else. Some make bigger waves and cause bigger splashes – some do touch history and bend it one way or another, but most of us just don’t matter. That’s a hard truth to face, and one that seems to rear its head whenever my birthday rolls around, re-enforced by the rest of the world on that day in particular. And as bitter as this post might sound or read to you, I no longer harbor bitterness in my heart. A little residual hurt, echoes of confused sorrow, perhaps, but no more bitterness or anger, because that eats away at the soul. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after almost 51 years here, it’s that no one but me is going to protect myself – and happily that’s the one person on whom I can always rely.
