How I Feel About Birthdays

Illustration by Enid Mollel

I never grew up really celebrating my birthday. My mum and dad never saw it as a tradition to uphold. The best I’d get when the day rolled around was a pat on the back or extra protein with my meals. And I wasn’t necessarily sad about it at that time because I had no point of reference to compare birthday celebrations with. When I enrolled in primary school, things became different, however. I got a birthday twin — a classmate who had the same birthday as I did but actually celebrated the day. That set the pace for how I started to view birthdays. On 9th June every year till after primary school, I’d dread going to class because I was ashamed of being reminded by my unknowing classmates that I was a spare human, even on a day supposed to be “my day”. Even if I sat in the corner of the class pretending that my birthday was not on that day, and trying to blend in with my classmates as they wished my birthday twin a happy celebration, people would remember at some point during the chaos that Price, too, was supposed to be celebrating her birthday and I would be dragged to the front of the class to answer the uncomfortable question of why I didn’t bring a cake to school as xxx did.

As we aged — my birthday twin and I — I think people realized at some point not to ask the uncomfortable questions, but my low self-esteem would whisper in my head telling me that everyone was secretly mocking me for not being able to afford a birthday cake. I’d go home and cry, screaming to my mother and asking why she wouldn’t just suck it up and get me a cake like “normal children” had, which was quite selfish if you ask me. I was selfish and mean, but all I ever wanted was a cake.

“I told myself it was not fear keeping me offline but my apathy for birthdays, and I would be good at allowing myself to believe the lie…”

When I got to the age where birthday cakes weren’t all the rage anymore, my dislike for my birthday extended to more than just the possession of a physical object to signify my aging. The birthday cake I always wanted, at some point, transformed into the need for social validation on my birthday. The validation that I, too, existed. I would go to school on 9th June then and count the number of Happy Birthdays my birthday twin received while I waited to see if anyone remembered that I, too, existed. And people would remember. And I would get a couple of Happy Birthdays too, but my mind would always convince me that, compared to my birthday twin, what were a couple of my wishes to the numerous ones she received. And the vicious voices in my head would always win. I would sulk and push myself into a self-created prison where I was always just an irrelevant extra nobody needed around.

By the time I’d turned thirteen, I would have mini panic attacks on my birthday. I’d dread to go outside or even go online. My dislike for birthdays had transformed once again — it moved to social platforms. I would put off going to Facebook or Whatsapp on 9th June now. I told myself it was not fear keeping me offline but my apathy for birthdays, and I would be good at allowing myself to believe the lie till I actually went online and the first thing I did was to count how many people wished my birthday twin a happy birthday on her timeline and on their WhatsApp stories. I’d observe the times of the day she was wished a happy birthday. And I’d realize that while she got people to wish her a happy birthday at 12:00am on the dot, it wouldn’t be till after 2pm in the day that people remembered Price, too, was celebrating her birthday. In realization, I’d get one Whatsapp story dedicated to me with all the birthday wishes I could never imagine, and then right after would be a continuation of the 15+ stories dedicated to my twin. Those last-minute birthday considerations always hurt me more than people outright forgetting my birthday. Personally, it felt like scraps handed to me after a princess ate her meal. And the voices in my head would tell me that that analogy was right. After all, wasn’t I just a spare human, even on my birthday?

“Then, I’d wait for people to see my announcement and realize it was my birthday and bask in the twisted joy I got from seeing many birthday messages swamp in.”

At some point in my adolescence, my parents decided to start celebrating my siblings and I’s birthdays. I don’t know what sparked that switch in ideology, but they developed the habit of posting “happy birthdays” to me and my brothers on their WhatsApp stories. But after 16 years of never having it feel like my parents actually cared about my birthday, this new move of theirs felt redundant. I really appreciated that they tried, but my heart would hurt whenever a part of me questioned why now. Why did they suddenly care? And so yet again during that period, I started to dislike my birthday to a newer extent. But regardless of how much I convinced myself that their sudden care was redundant, I would tally their love for me every year by how early they wished me a happy birthday. And I honestly wished I wasn’t this way and I didn’t do such things, because I only ended up hurting myself. I don’t know why I still remember this, but I would tally up how my elder brother got a happy birthday wish from our parents at 8:13am one year in February while it was well after 5pm till I got a happy birthday from them. And I would convince myself that this meant that they didn’t love me as much, even if I never had the best relationship with them, to begin with.

After two years of continuing to play this tallying game with my parents and with the world — sometime after 2017 — I stooped to an all-time low: I started faking birthday messages to myself. I’d text myself “happy birthday” and then make fake Whatsapp announcements at times of the day when I clearly had received no messages, telling everyone that I was overwhelmed by all the birthday wishes they had sent and that I was too busy to reply but I would try to get to everyone. Then, I’d wait for people to see my announcement and realize it was my birthday and bask in the twisted joy I got from seeing many birthday messages swamp in.

“I didn’t come off my internal battles with the voices unscathed, but it was at least a step in some form of direction. I would be lying if I said I automatically started to feel happier. I didn’t. But I kept telling myself that one day I would be. “

 After doing that for another year, I finally got disgusted with myself and how pathetic I was being, and in 2019, I decided to start rethinking my priorities and why I was chasing social validation for my existence. I started by choosing first to stop placing that validation in the hands of others. I woke up on 9th June 2019 and did not post a celebrating my birthday update. I forced myself to start appreciating the birthday wishes I did receive. And for the first time in quite a while, I shouted back at the voices in my head that wanted me to keep comparing myself with others. I didn’t come off my internal battles with the voices unscathed, but it was at least a step in some form of direction. I would be lying if I said I automatically started to feel happier. I didn’t. But I kept telling myself that one day I would be. 

In 2020, I asked myself why, for the longest time, I felt I was a spare human being. No immediate answers came from that questioning, but at least it got me thinking once again. It took me receiving an “ I love you” birthday voice note from my mother on 9th June — the first time I had actually heard her say that — for me to realize that I seemed to be doing well in not caring for validation. Don’t get me wrong, her message did affect me quite positively; I outright bawled 21 years of frustration after hearing her say the words. But after crying, it seemed like something had fundamentally changed within me. I was receptive to her message while still acknowledging that even if she didn’t send it, I would have gone by my birthday without resorting to tallying people’s love for me in terms of messages. 

This year, I plan on intentionally not celebrating my birthday, something I had already started doing last year. The only difference is that last year, I did so out of acquired indifference. This year, I am doing it because I deserve the quiet that comes with facing 9th June without burdens attached.