My Odd Relationship With Birthdays

February 23rd 2018

A very merry unbirthday to me~

My birthday is in 2 days (if you count today) and I had a plan to post a “What I’m Wearing” post but decided that it just wasn’t what I wanted to do so maybe I will just show you my outfit after my birthday (because I know tons of you like a good OOTD). But today I just sort of wanted to reflect on birthdays as a whole.

I have a weird relationship with birthdays. It is sort of like the relationship you have with the kid of a family friend who you sort of just hang out with out of the fact that they are there and you are sort of obligated to by association, but they wouldn’t exactly be the friend you’d choose for yourself. It is this awkward relationship that I feel like I should want and appreciate but constantly feel at odds with.

You see, birthdays have always been a bit tough on me. In my early life, birthdays were great because they were filled with fun activities and my mom would plan them and I would get to drink soda, which I rarely got to have, and get new toys. Now that I’m older, my mom doesn’t plan my parties, I can buy soda whenever I want because I’m a grown up, and birthdays aren’t filled with shiny new toys like they used to.

I don’t remember any middle school birthdays which leads me to believe that I’m either forgetting them for a reason or they weren’t worth remembering to begin with. My relationship with birthdays in high school only got worse because I started out high school jumping between having no friends and having bad friends. I had a sweet 16 but I remember it being more stressful than fun at points and although I am happy I had one, I still felt at odds with my birthday.

Junior year of high school I got my license…then my friends ditched me on a street corner by the high school to go drink then I walked myself home and went to Starbucks with one of my friends who decided to actually stay with me. I don’t remember much else of that birthday. My birthday senior year was so uneventful that I didn’t even post one of those obligatory Instagram pictures announcing my birthday.

In college no one knew it was my birthday during freshman year except for a few select people. Everyone had planned stuff for each other’s birthdays, but no one planned anything for me from what I remember and I don’t know if I even ended up doing anything. I think I just hung out with my (ex) boyfriend.

After freshman year, I forced myself to over emphasize my birthday to everyone so I would sort of make myself feel important. A sort of “fake it til you make it” deal. The rest of college was a bunch of me running around screaming “IT’S MY BIRTHDAYYYYYY” even though I would have rather just not said anything at all.

I wouldn’t say I hate my birthday, although I used to. I just haven’t found an ideal birthday situation for me. I didn’t really want to plan anything for this year, but I know I wanted to see my friends. I just don’t feel my birthday is that important. I know I’ve said that it’s a great day to celebrate life and the people in it, which I do still believe, but I just don’t feel like I am worth a whole day.

That probably sounds really morbid and I don’t mean it to be. I just never really loved being the center of attention because it also makes me feel like the center of expectations. Like I feel like I HAVE to plan a fun night or no one will want to hang out with me anymore and I’ll be known as the girl who throws lame birthdays.

I think it’s because I have had a lot of lame birthdays that weren’t necessarily my fault and now I sort of pressure myself into creating this happy good time for everyone when I really feel like I’d rather shut myself in a dark room and wait for the day to be over. I know my friends don’t care what we do and just want to see me, but the pressure I put on myself is still there.

But, like the past few years, I am going to go into this birthday with the “IT’S MY BIRTHDAYYYYYYYYYYYY” attitude and hope that I can fake it til I make it.

Either way, I will be another year older with even more lessons to learn~

Jess~