i hate my birthday
it is loathsome, to be observed. to be watched, weighed, regarded not as a person but as a point of interest. even in its mildest form — a glance, a question, a piece of small talk — there is pressure. the pressure to reply, to return, to offer something. and worse still: the spotlight. the deliberate moment of being looked at, fixed in place. not because you asked to be, but because it’s been decided for you. because it is time.
i have always found it unbearable.
and worse than the watching is the ritual that follows. the birthday. the promotion. the graduation. a cake appears. someone makes a speech. people laugh too loudly at nothing. you are meant to stand there. to nod. to be pleased. the affection arrives, prepackaged, awkward. it is a gesture, not a feeling. and what, exactly, are we meant to feel?
the ritual seems designed to prove something. i exist, therefore i must be acknowledged. i have achieved this, therefore i must be clapped for. it all feels circular. i detest it.
others don’t seem to. even those who claim to dislike attention find their way to the center when the time comes. they allow themselves to be toasted. to be sung to. to be fêted. there is an unspoken contract, i think: you will allow yourself to be celebrated now, and later, you will do the same for me. i hate that too.
maybe i hate it because i do not want to be remembered. remembrance is heavy. it piles up. it collects expectations. stories. versions of you you never agreed to. maybe it’s not being remembered that I hate, but the fact that I cannot choose how. that to be remembered at all is to be rewritten.
celebration, in this sense, is a demand. it says: look at me. remember me. lift your glass. i don’t know that anything makes a person look smaller than standing in a circle, smiling at the sound of their own name.
who is worth celebrating? maybe the dead. maybe because they aren’t here to be embarrassed by it. but even that feels cheapened by repetition. the anniversary. the memorial. the curated grief. real grief doesn’t happen in public. it isn’t printed on programs. it doesn’t require a microphone. it arrives quietly, often alone, and stays long after everyone else has gone home.
but we mark it anyway. not for the dead, but for the living. to prove we feel. to prove we remember. and in that performance, something essential slips away. real feeling vanishes under the weight of what’s expected. and still we do it. because not doing it would be worse.
there is a relentless insistence on celebration. the birthday, in particular, feels brutal. a reminder, year after year, of time’s passing. of decay. of what’s been lost. and still people mark it. they gather, as if the number itself holds meaning. as if counting something makes it less frightening.
maybe that’s all it is — fear. maybe people don’t want to be celebrated. maybe they just don’t want to be forgotten. maybe that’s what all this is: an insurance policy against erasure. one more photograph. one more card. proof that they were here, even briefly.
i think often about the effort required. the planning. the schedules. the rehearsed jokes. the toasts. all of it arranged so that one person can be visible, for a moment. so that someone else can be convinced that it mattered. it’s so much work, and for what? a group of people in a room, pretending not to notice the absurdity of it.
i hate sentiment. i hate spectacle. and i hate what celebration reveals: not joy, but need. the need to be seen. the need to be important. it is the most common cliché. and the most tragic.
i know the world will not stop for me. i know my absence will not be noticed. these events will continue. the music will play. people will laugh. they will dance. they will light candles and blow them out and call it something sacred. they will mark the passage of time with wine and speeches and soft applause.
and they will not think of me at all.
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