From Hating to Embracing Birthdays

I’m not really sure when it started, but at some point in late teens/early adulthood I stopped liking my birthdays. It would stress me out weeks before when friends and family asked what I was doing or even worst, did I want to get together with them. I remember a college friend visiting and my husband telling her stories how he would plan surprise trips early in our early dating years and I would just refuse to go. She was like “Yeah, she would never let us do anything for her birthday.” My husband is the opposite extreme. He loves his birthday. He loves to celebrate. He wants the big party. I’m in total awe. I love planning his parties and seeing the absolute joy he has being celebrated by his friends both in person and on social media (where I delete any indication of my birthday). Ironically, well maybe not so ironically, Tubby also has BAS (Birthday Avoidance Syndrome) a topic we’ve never deep dived into why we both have it, but I’m sure the origins are similar. Perhaps for a future podcast.

When our son started to get old enough to understand I got a little weird on my birthdays, I had to start faking it but I remember I would be exhausted and cranky the end of the day trying to hide it. So much for faking it as a parent. The one thing I could commit to was running races. For my 40th, I ran the Boston Marathon and for other non-milestone birthdays, some sort of road race. Since running is my therapy, I knew that would at least give me temporary relief.

Fast forward to about 7 years ago, I had a serious enough health issue that gave me pause to hating my birthdays. I remember a colleague (who I still work with) said you know you should look at it as ‘The opposite of a birthday is not having a birthday.” It hit me like a ton of bricks. It made me stop with the wallowing around my birthday and completely changed my outlook. I’m lucky to have a birthday. As you get older, you are inundated with news about friends and family members either passing on or who were struck with a serious illness or accident. That’s part of aging and part of the natural cycle of life. In some cases, the event has a positive turn; e.g. a few weeks ago a friend of a close friend, world got turned around when their college freshman daughter was cycling and was hit by a car, fighting for her life and is slowing recovering. Life is precious. Life is short. I’m lucky to have a birthday.

So now, I celebrate myself. I still don’t like big parties or dinners, but I love to make it special and ‘allow’ my husband and son to as well.

So here’s to another birthday!

-BT