Musings: Why I Stopped Dreading My Birthday and Learned to Celebrate Life at Any Age

My Childhood Love for September

When I was a kid, September was full of wonder and happiness for me. It was my month. Things had to get better! After all, it was my birth month and things had to look up. Not just one day but the entire month was special to me. Because I grew up in a household where birthdays were treated as special. To this day, I remember my 10^th birthday.

My sister’s best friend had spent the day with us. And around the evening, before my…well for lack of a better word, let’s just call them my friends came for the party, and my mother sent us out to get my cake from the local cake shop. We had placed an order for it. In those days, if you wanted a special cake – you had to place an order way ahead of time – because no one wanted just to pick up a cake en route to the party – though it seemed like a much better option.

I had been pretty unmindful while crossing the road and almost got hit by a car. I still remember my sister yelling, “Be careful! It’s your birthday today – not your death day.”

Little did I know that’s how it would start feeling like since the eve of my twentieth birthday.

How Landmark Birthdays Began to Haunt Me

People get excited about certain landmark birthdays – thirteen, because you’re a teenager, fifteen, because you can finally watch certain movies, seventeen, because that’s when you come of age in the wizarding world, eighteen, because that’s when you start being able to masquerade as an adult. According to my sister, there are other landmark birthdays too – twenty-one, this is when she let me get a second ear piercing, twenty-five, the time she gifted me a Nook Book, thirty, when she gifted me a Coach bag, and now, it’s thirty-five, when she decided to give me what I’d asked for but made me question her sanity at the same time.

As kids, we are always excited about our birthdays. Well, most of us anyway. And in my family birthdays have always been a huge deal. But as one traumatizing birthday followed another, and I grew up, I began to resent September. I began to dread my birthday. And mostly I began to dread my own birthday celebrations.

Somewhere between school and college, I started recognizing people for who they were – rather than who I wanted them to be. I’ve lost more people than I care to count anymore. And sometimes these realizations happen only around September.

The Turning Point: A Cry to the Universe

Sitting on the ledge of the university Arts building on the eve of my twentieth birthday, I remember yelling out to the Universe how much I was dreading the next day. And how I wanted to stay nineteen. I didn’t want to step into my twenties. I didn’t want to start the journey of becoming an actual adult – not just one who had a document stating she could vote!

But university was also the first time I experienced what it truly meant to be a friend, what unconditional love was, and how people could be nice to you without a hidden agenda. Friendships where we celebrated each other’s wins and never got jealous of our successes. I did not understand it then – but looking back – I know now that this was the first time my nervous system started calming down and feeling regulated. I wasn’t anxious or jittery, and constantly second-guessing myself. I was happy.

I could go into an entire rant about what the friendships were like for me in school, and why most of the people I spent a good chunk of my life with no longer matter to me – but that would become an entire post by itself. And I don’t want to do that.

Even though I started healing, and became more careful about the friendships, I still dropped the ball – and my birthdays still haunted me.

A Rough Year: Corporate Jobs, Toxic Relationships, and Seeking Help

Honestly, up until even last year, it had felt like someone was dragging me kicking and screaming into a brand-new year of my life. I could see the marks my fingernails had made as I tried to hold on for just another five minutes, and it always felt like a dark cloud was hanging over my head, threatening to upend the little façade I had created convincing myself that I was happy. But if I was truly happy – I wouldn’t have cared so much about a day that just marked another year of my existence in this world.

When this year started, I was in a less-than-ideal situation. I was stuck at a corporate job I had taken up on a whim believing I was doing the right thing – after my birthday last year – and couldn’t find a way out. A random dude I met on a dating app did a number on my mental health – and so when another distraction came along it was easy to convince myself that this was it.

I had a job, I had a boy, and since it was a landmark year it just made sense.

Except it didn’t. And I continued to be unhappy. Only, I didn’t realize it back then. I didn’t know back then what I know now. If you don’t heal from what cut you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t hurt you. I was trapped again in a toxic, codependent nightmare. Both of us bled on each other – until I couldn’t take it anymore.

The Healing Journey: Therapy, Self-Care, and Personal Growth

The relationship, the job, the life – everything needed to change. So, I did what any sane person in my position would do. Ask a therapist for help, took care of myself health-wise, tried somatic workouts, started journaling, and became extremely intentional in what I wanted out of life, from friendships, and started embodying that version of myself.

And then I experienced the shift.

Instead of worrying about my birthday, I looked forward to it. The first people who taught me what friends were like are scattered across different cities but they have celebrated everything in my life. I missed them, but it’s been a happy sort of missing.

The people I spent time with on my birthday have been people I have been very intentional about being friends with. Gone are the days when pouring one out will solve our problems. The world is full of good people and I started collecting them like Pokémon!

Finding Joy in New Traditions and Friendships

I went from hiding from the world on my birthday to being overjoyed at being able to spend it with people whose company I truly enjoyed. Game Night has been something that I loved. So, I just combined the two. It’s a different kind of happy to witness people yell at each other when they play Taboo, or when they write outrageous lies or spill the truth while playing the Bowl Game, yell who’s most likely to, and play a round of Bluff where people are dead serious about winning!

Even though I kept checking in with myself and asking myself if I was feeling grumpy, the answer always came back – nope, I am happy. It’s a good life. And honestly, that was enough for me. My birthday was spent visiting the beach, going to the park, getting breakfast, going shopping for a birthday dress, spending time with some of the best people I know, and making memories of a day when I am truly celebrated!

The Big Takeaway: Don't Let Age Define You

I no longer dread my birthday or any other landmark years that will follow this one. I might not have found romantic love yet – but I have found people who love me, who have only wanted what’s best for me, and who continue to make me want to show up more authentically with each passing day.

We honestly should normalize the fact life doesn’t end at twenty or twenty-five. Life isn’t defined by how quickly you find a partner or check the career success milestones. If there’s anything I learned this year – it’s this – don’t dread your birthday! And don’t let anyone define you by your age. It’s true what they say – age is nothing but a number. Just make sure it’s a number that counts in any way you want it to matter.