The gift that keeps on giving

I remember the first time I cried on my birthday I had just turned fifteen. Two of my friends were in the room in various states of slumber, and my age and loneliness pressed upon me like humidity in a thunderstorm. 

I had to deal with three feelings:

1.     Gut-retching fear that one day I’m going to die, probably alone. As these people sleep around me, I am alone in this consciousness, which is exactly what will happen when I die, too.

2.     Sadness that everything my parents, hell, everyone’s parents had told us wasn’t true. We aren’t special. At my age I didn’t beam with potential or stand out amongst my peers as the kind of exemplary individual I had deluded myself into believing I was. I sleep dreamlessly; I walk through life in a dream. What a nightmare. 

3.     The guilt of knowing nothing caused this. I wanted for nothing. My family and friends cared for and loved me, making my birthday seem important. Yet, this feeling was real and all-encompassing. I’m afraid to die. I’m sad to have not truly lived.

It’s been eight years, and I’ve still cried on every birthday since. I looked it up, assuming this aberration in behavior was attributed to something deeper—like, I don’t know, climate change. Yeah, let’s blame that.

They call it “birthday depression.” Apparently, being wracked with fear or ambivalence or sorrow in recognition of aging is quite common. What better gift for yourself than an annual existential crisis? There goes my theory. 

Don’t get me wrong, I see the self-indulgent aspect of this. Boo-hoo me, I inspire pity because my birthday isn’t a balloon fair and all that. But my birthdays were not often that pathetic. So, feeling #3 persisted, obnoxiously expanding with each passing year, sometimes rolling over across the whole week of my birthday. 

Days before the big day I would prep myself. “Okay, now this year is going to be different. Nothing is wrong. It’s just another day. Don’t think about the fact that it’s your day. Mom did all the work, so don’t kid yourself.” 

To my own disbelief, this opposite-of-pep talk didn’t quite do the trick, and when I crawled into bed at night and discovered moments later that my pillow was soaked in tears, I tallied the streak as unbroken. There’s always next year.

Problem is, once the pattern was set after oh, four years, I guess, it became hard to break for other underlying reasons than the 3 feelings. Birthday breakdowns were now a rite of passage. It almost didn’t feel like a birthday anymore unless I’d squeezed out some emotions through my tear ducts. If I called it a reset that might make it seem healthier, only it was much more pathetic. Like wiping a slate clean but not with a rag, with a stick of dynamite. 

Maybe I mourn myself every year. Scratch that—no “maybe”—I do mourn myself every year. It’s got nothing to do with anybody else, which should make #3 more palatable. But if birthdays are a celebration of life, why is it that it makes me feel like I’ve died? Here’s where the philosophers and comedians should have a sit down. I’d love to see what they come up with.

In the meantime, I’m working on new feelings for all the days in between birthdays:

1.     The sun is on my face, so warm I can feel it through my eyelids. It’s the week after my birthday, and I’ve decided to go to the beach because the flippant Spring weather has swung in my favor today. There is no such thing as age when you’re on the sand with your eyes closed. 

2.     Sometimes rain is comforting, but storms are another story. When the sky is so dark that the day is indistinguishable from the night, I don’t nuzzle up to a good book and read. I walk out into the street and am instantly soaked through to the base of my socks. Something about this makes me feel so alive—and lonely. 

3.     I’m covered in watermelon. There’s a farmer's market down the road from where I live, and I’ve finally figured out why people slap watermelons to determine which is best. It should sound hollow. Those are the juiciest ones. I’ve picked one accordingly and sliced it up, exposing its red organs and black cells. When I take a messy bite, I forget that anything other than this perfect taste exists.

4.     The person I love does not love me the way I wish they would. This could be complicated or simple depending on my own self-esteem and time of life. Being the age that I am, time moves exactly opposite of my comfort level. When I need it slow, it speeds by. When I need it fast, it comes to a halt. Why does this matter? Because I don’t know if I have time to waste waiting and hoping for them to love me differently, but every moment also seems too brief. I haven’t had enough of this confusing, imperfect, wonderful love. 

5.     Holidays never mean one thing anymore. All the lights and colors, the capitalist-fueled decorations over every square inch of this country make me feel so old and young at once. Ah, the memories and familiarity, kind as a kiss from a grandparent. But now there’s the juxtaposition of people not being there who always were, of the magic fading, and the music repeating that you’ve already heard a hundred times. 

6.     This is it. The moment before all the feelings on the day. I’ve just said goodbye to everyone who came bearing gifts, birthday wishes, and smiles that could’ve been molded from clay. There is one last unopened present addressed to me from me. Deep in my belly something is glowing like contentment from chocolate cake. I feel that I could simply fall asleep and not open this one—maybe save it for tomorrow. But everyone is gone and opening it tomorrow just wouldn’t be the same as opening it today. I lie in bed, unwrapping it with attentive, cautious care. I already know what it is, but when the bow and wrapping paper unfurls, I am, once again, surprised.