any other day

I had a revelation today about why my birthday bugs me. I've known for a very long time that of course it comes at a very inconvenient time of year - who (yours truly included) has time for birthday crap on December 21st, ironically also the darkest day of the year? What dawned on me today though is that I honestly don't care about my birthday, certainly not enough to be cause for celebration. After the age of 18, I don't see the point in making a big deal of it. You can vote. OK - so you have to wait until you're 21 to drink in the USA, and until you're 23 if you want to strip in Las Vegas. But otherwise, what's the big deal? If I won an award, or graduated, or got a big promotion, that would be cause for celebration. If I was deathly ill, or hit a milestone birthday like 50, then that would be cause for celebration. But managing to make it through another calendar year? Whoop. De. Doo.

I appreciate that lots of people love to celebrate their birthday, and I totally respect that. Go hard. And I'm all over parties for my kids. And making people happy, makes me happy, so I am of course absolutely thrilled to participate, and even help organize and plan if that happens to be what that person wants. What picked my butt this year, though, was that despite having asked for the same thing, every year, for as long as I can remember, I never get it. What is it that I want? Well, I want the day to come, and go, like any other day. That would be~my~ birthday wish. I like my Mom to make me my angel food cakes (one for everyone to share, one for me lol), and I am perfectly content to have quiet dinner with my family. And put up the tree, since officially, Christmas never comes until AFTER my birthday.

I honest to goodness don't want gifts. I don't want to throw a party or have one thrown in my honour. I don't want to go to a restaurant. I am tired, like everyone else is, and bogged down with Christmas, like everyone else is. When people ask me what I want, and I say nothing, they take it upon themselves to make up things I'd surely like to do, that I MUST want to do, and when I don't jump up and down and say, "Wow, great!" I am made to feel GUILTY. "Well we just want to do something special for you." OK - so something special for me, on my birthday, would be to have the day come, and go, like any other day.

Now, I've already said that I like to make people happy. The crux of the realization I had today was that I don't give a flying rat's patootie about my birthday, and the only reason I 'celebrate' it is to make everyone else happy. It makes THEM feel good, to think they are doing something special for me, even if that means sitting me in a noisy crowded restaurant and making me listen to the Tone Deaf Waiter Glee Club sing their insincere 'signature' version of Happy Birthday over a nasty edible-oil-icing covered cupcake with gay sparkler on it. So for what it's worth, I love a quick email that says, "Happy Birthday," and a quiet day at home. Everything else is about as enjoyable as pouring nail polish remover in my eyes.

Now that this is out in the open, I imagine there will be some hurt feelings. The people who are bent on making me feel extra special because my birthday is so close to Christmas will be angry with me for being ungrateful. Well, it isn't that I'm not grateful that you care. I just wish for once people would listen to what I am saying, and believe it, instead of thinking I'm trying to be a martyr. Really, I'm not. Just say Happy Birthday, and get busy with your Christmas planning, so I can get back to mine.