As far back as I can remember, I’ve always hated my birthday.
The fact that I don’t remember most of my birthdays from my teen years is enough of a testament to how mundane they were to me. One that stands out is my 12th grade birthday. My friends were supposed to come over early afternoon and spend the day at my place, and we’d eventually go out for dinner. It started raining around 11am and what followed was one of the worst days of rain my hometown has ever seen. It was impossible to step out of the house and my friends had to cancel the plan. I spent the day studying physics in my room.
I felt a weird mix of relief and unease. Relief because I hated being the centre of attention, unease because I’ve always found that birthdays carry with them a pressure to have fun, or at least to show the people around you that you are.
For most of my life, I’ve been in relationships. When you’re in a relationship, that pressure is no longer on you, it’s on your partner. You get a gift, you take a trip, or book a stay, or you spend the day in your room. Either way, the performative side of the birthday is satisfied because what better way to spend a special day than with someone you love?
Fast forward to my 25th birthday. It was probably the first birthday I was single in almost a decade. I felt like a person with debilitating stage fright forced on the podium to make a speech. I wasn’t sure what to do or how to spend the day. I spent most of it hiding out in my room and went out for some drinks with my friends at night.
For the next couple of years, I made it a point to take a trip during my birthday, usually with a group of strangers. This way, the pressure to celebrate my birthday or make it fun was at bay.
Every single way I’ve dealt with my birthday is the same strategy wearing different hats. For a person who has spent a huge part of his life on stage, it’s ironic that I keep finding ways to remove the audience. The relationship outsources the performance, the stranger trip eliminates anyone who expects one.
I hosted my fair share of events during college. In one of the events, the chairman was running late, and one of my seniors walked up on stage, and announced that I’d be performing an impromptu classical dance to bide time while the chairman arrived. I haven’t performed classical dance a day in my life. I confidently walked back up on stage, put up a smile, and danced my heart out. In my head, it was a fair transaction. In exchange for a night of jokes, embarrassment and an event that ran smoothly, the audience gave me their attention. It felt earned. I could stand in front of hundreds of people and entertain them without flinching, because I knew exactly what I owed them.
A birthday hands me the same audience (albeit smaller) and takes away that knowledge. Eight friends, singing off-key, watching me cut a cake, and nothing is asked of me except to be the person the day is about. I have no idea how to do that. My brain ends up putting me back on stage - make it the best damn birthday they’ve ever attended and prove that the evening was worth their time.
I’m terrified that this will never change - not because I’ll never be excited for my birthday, but because I believe the cost this exacts is much higher. Friends who never look forward to my birthday because I always have a trip booked. The celebrations I don’t remember because I designed them to be forgettable. Will I remember any of my birthdays from my 20s? Or will my life just be a series of me running away from people whose attention was never meant to be repaid?
I turn 28 in exactly a month. Maybe this is the year I find out what a birthday that’s just for me looks like. Then again, I do have a girlfriend. I’ll just let her plan it.