Why I Hate Celebrating My Birthday
And it’s not about me growing older!
My birthday has never been special to me, ever.
I was born on my sister’s birthday. The family joke is that her first birthday cake was a slice of jam bread, which she ate in the backseat of my parent’s car as my mom was driven to the hospital to deliver me just two minutes shy of noon.
My sister established her claim to our birthday. So, I never felt it was mine. At best, the day was a shared celebration, but my sister (in our growing-up years) certainly let me know she owned the day.
I didn’t mind. It’s all I ever knew.
But I admit having to share the same cake and joint presents was, occasionally, a pain in my rear as a kid. It’s a middle-kid, sibling thing. I was always sharing, always getting the hand-me-downs. Again, I was fine because it was all I’d ever known.
Yet, as I grew into adulthood, I developed a healthy contrarian philosophy regarding birthdays.
Birthdays are not about you
Birthdays honor the wrong people. The birthday boy or birthday girl should not be the one receiving presents, cards and cake.
I started giving my mom a card on my birthday. My logic — she did all the work from birthing me to raising me. If anyone should be celebrated on the day I was born, it should be mom. Father too, in more traditional families, not mine.
Admittedly, this is unconventional thinking borne out of teenage rebellion or learning to think beyond social norms. But my mom, a single mother for many years, deserved a lot of credit. Giving her a card on my birthday acknowledged her sacrifices.
My siblings considered me weird, then and now, and labeled me as “mom’s favorite.” Mom appreciated the thought.
Bad time birthdays
As an adult, I went through an era when harmful things seemed to happen on my birthday.
A deadly chlorine gas cloud threatened Tampa in the early 1980s on my birthday. The entire city locked down inside as winds blew the lethal cloud toward downtown. I worked at a local TV station. All news staff stayed to track the danger until it dissipated many hours later. It ruined my husband’s surprise birthday dinner for me. But luckily the injuries to residents were minimal except at the explosion site.
I get it. It’s not unusual to feel surrounded by misfortune, mishaps and monstrous acts with news as my chosen profession. Even on birthdays.
Bad things happen in my personal life too. My mom’s oncologist was killed on my birthday. We’d grown close in the months he worked to save her life. His bedside manner was kind, caring, always positive. He never stopped fighting her cancer.
A power line that hung too low electrocuted him when his sailboat mast hit it. A tragic accident killed a good man on my birthday.
Birthday blessings
We interred my father-in-law’s ashes at Arlington National Cemetery on my birthday.
Families do not have the option to select a funeral date at US national cemeteries for military, veterans and their families. The cemetery staff schedules the funeral. Period. So when an Arlington representative called with my father-in-law’s internment plans, there was no debate.
It upset my husband. He’d lost his dad, his role model, his best friend. He had no control over that. But his dad’s funeral scheduled on my birthday, he wanted changed, knowing my uncomfortable relationship with the day. But I stopped him.
Call it coincidence, kismet, serendipity, it was more than a happenstance. It was a blessing. As nonsensical as it seems, I viewed the synchronicity as my father-in-law’s way of showing his love for me and for me loving his son.
His funeral made my birthday special.
I celebrate now — quietly, meditatively, in reverence and remembrance of all the good in my life; my father-in-law, my mom’s oncologist, my husband, and my sister.
