Living with a Cursed Birthday

A small, elvin child swings from the iron trellis on the front porch of her home. The afternoon is as perfect as early summer afternoons can be. The sun shines brightly in the sky, far from the horizon. The grass is freshly cut. A gentle breeze rustles the nearly florescent leaves on a tall oak tree that shades a group of children, sporting party hats and holding little hug fruit barrel drinks in their sweaty, dirt covered hands. They are laughing, running in circles, sloshing the sugary drink on their shorts and legs. The tiny child watches the children while she climbs the trellis higher and higher. Her long, dark hair is held in pig tails. She wears a conical shaped hat. A chin strap secures the flimsy paperboard to her head. The children pay no attention to the climber, but her mother is. The mother moves her eyes frantically from the group of children to the sprite scaling the porch of her house. She races toward her child, arms out, prepared to pull her off of the trellis before it is too late. But, it is too late. Her daughter stretches an arm out toward the children under the tree, her sneakers gripping the metal latticework, her body hanging at a 45 degree angle. A large and loud shriek escapes from the child's lips. "FU$K YOU! FUUUUUUUUUU$K ALL OF YOU!" The children freeze, as though they are playing a game of tag. Everyone stares. Jaws drop. Someone giggles. "That's it." The mother has now reached the little girl, and, in one swift motion, has yanked her from the trellis and she crashes on her bottom in the grass. "Everyone is going home. NOW!" No one makes eye contact with the adrenaline- jacked elvin girl, rocking her body in the grass, tears streaming down her cheeks, as each party goer steps into their parent's car, gift in hand. "Don't take the giant puppy card!" the girl protests. She cries out, "I'm sorry!" and sobs at the departure of the presents that were hers only an hour earlier; baby dolls, bubbles, a board game. She whimpers until she is exhausted and cold. The party is long over. Her mother scoops her up and eases her into a hot bubble bath. She dries her, helps her put on her pajamas and feeds her dinner before tucking her into bed. As she leans over to kiss her little, explosive, sweet-faced child, she whispers, "Happy sixth birthday, Sis. This was your first and last birthday party."

My birthday is cursed. It has been ever since my mom had to make those calls of shame to my classmates' parents because I called them all fu$kers. She held true to her word, and I never hosted a birthday party again in elementary school. By middle school, either she had healed from the trauma, or was too exhausted with perpetual parenting, and she acquiesced to my pleas to hold a slumber party with a small group of girlfriends. The gathering was a huge success- pizza and movies, styling hair (mine was still very long, though no longer worn in pigtails), swapping clothes, and giggling well past midnight. My mom had renewed faith in me and my ability not to spew profanity at celebrations in my honor. She nearly promised to let me host another party the following year, until she received a call from one of the moms the next day, urging us to inspect my hair for nits. Turns out I got to keep the gifts from this party, wrapped with a bow, and some lice.

In subsequent years, I cut my hair (making it easier to search for nits) and stopped mentioning my birthday. Some years were fun, most were simple- cake, some mini golfing, and another sleepless-night slumber party or two. The day came and went, without much fan fare or cause for concern. I am unable to pinpoint the precise year that my birthday became a fun-sucking irritation. It was after I had children. Enjoyable events and activities that centered around me dried up and died when my children were born, including my birthday. Trying to manage cake, or even a dinner out, felt like more work than it was worth when it meant hiring a babysitter and scheduling celebratory activities around naps. When we did make it out of the house, as I'd sit in a restaurant, sipping wine and eating ravioli and garlic bread, I often wished I was all alone, in a dark hotel room, laying in a king-size bed, enjoying room service and HBO.

Admitting one's desire to be in complete isolation on their birthday is not an American societal norm. To combat the pressure to party, I started hiding my birth date from others. I do not share my birthday on social media. I change the subject if I am asked. I share my birthday on a need-to-know basis and most people don't need to know.

Offices that require sharing birth date information with colleagues make me cringe. Not only do I have to share something super personal with folks whom I may or may not share any other personal information with, we all then get to participate in the awkwardness of card signing, gift sharing, cake making, and profuse thanking- a series of events played out as uncomfortably as a middle school dance, going through the motions, escaping to the bathroom to cry, and praying for it to end.

Those who were witness to the swearing, elvin days, slumber parties, or drunken college celebrations, still remember the marking of my yearly aging, and some even try to acknowledge it, much to my chagrin. I tolerate the day most years, silently whispering to myself, "This too shall pass." For my fortieth birthday, a true year of a crisis of the mind, spirit and soul, my friends and spouse, Andy, decided the best way for someone who doesn't like to celebrate her birthday, who is also on the verge of a mental breakdown, is to hold a surprise party. These people love me. These are the people who held my head, my hands, and my heart through a year of hell, but damn them all for trying to have a birthday party for me. Andy planned a celebration fit for, well, him. Held at a brewery, we offered beer and food truck items to our guests, who all arrived after me. For the first time in his entire life, my always tardy life partner, with me in tow, arrived promptly, surprising us all. The only children present were my own, who made it quite clear that an adult birthday at a brewery was bull$hit. I didn't swing from any trellises that afternoon, or have to return my gifts, but my anxiety skyrocketed, resulting in me picking a fight with Andy instead of thanking him. We are still licking old wounds from a memory better skipped than recalled.

It's not the getting older that makes me wary of my birthday. I accept aging as a part of life. I am not afraid of dying. I'm not sensitive about being over the hill. It's the formalized attention that makes me uncomfortable. It's the pressure to make the day great when the greatest days in life quietly unfold in little lovely, moments- or at least they do for me.

The pandemic removed any pressure I've normally felt about my birthday. My husband knew better than to plan a car parade. A party was out of the question. I gratefully accepted texts from friends near and far, the day feeling as low key and uneventful as every other day in quarantine. Though there was nowhere to go, and nothing to do, I took the day off of work, meaning I didn't open my laptop. The day was sunny and warm, and, as a summer baby, I felt compelled to spend a portion of the day near the lake in town. Andy, our two daughters, and my mother-in-law joined me for an outdoor lunch at a beautiful restaurant overlooking the water. We had all showered and combed our hair, a rarity last summer. We enjoyed sandwiches and lemonade and appreciated the enjoyment of eating out of the house, sitting around other people, and experiencing something normal in a year of nothing but abnormal. To complete my birthday wish list, I asked Andy to drop me off at our house so I could fold laundry and sit on the deck for an hour or so before we all gathered at his mom's house for dinner. My mother-in-law's MS had been causing her a great deal of pain over the last several months, and she needed an extra hand with daily tasks, especially since my father-in-law was out of town that week. Moments after my drop off, the phone rang. The caller ID listed my in-laws. I'd barely had 15 minutes alone and the kids were already bothering me. I was annoyed when I answered. My 10 year old was frantic, words spilling out in fear, "Grammy stopped breathing. I called 911."

My quiet, totally boring and perfect birthday turned into 48 hours of hell. I arrived at her house in time to see the EMT's close the doors to the ambulance. Because mothers are magic fairies, my mother, who drove from Massachusetts to celebrate my birthday, pulled into my mother-in-law's driveway minutes behind me. We found the kids shaken and scared and Andy distraught, moving mechanically, focusing on what needed to be done to tamp down his own fear. He left for the hospital, spending hours in the emergency room, waiting for answer. Fully believing my birthday was cursed, I wanted nothing more than to go home and get in bed. Instead, we decided the party must go on. We decorated the house, and ate candy from the piñata that we broke open via a bat beating. Then, we ate a cake I'd custom ordered from a local baker. We saved some for Grammy, hoping she'd be home the next day to eat leftovers.

She never got the chance to enjoy the cake with us. She suffered a pulmonary embolism. The cold and asthma diagnosis she received, months prior, was wrong. She hadn't needed a nebulizer. She needed emergency medical care. COVID restrictions prevented more than one person to be with the patient at a time. Andy would not leave her side, especially after he came home to sleep, only to get a call in the morning because the clot had moved and her condition was again, unstable. It turns out that a fear of dying is one of the reasons I hated my birthday.

So, you see, my birthday is cursed. I wish the world could skip right over it, like leap year. "Isn't it your birthday?" "Nope! Not this year!!"

Three hundred and sixty five days after the worst of the cursed birthdays, the sun was bright. Oak leaves looked fluorescent against the deep blue sky. The northeast welcomed the start of summer. I shipped Andy and his dad to the mountains for the weekend, but not before he gifted me with tickets to Hamilton. To start the day, I took a walk, and sipped coffee with my dear friends, you know, the surprise party consorts. I lavished my girls with manicures and pedicures. Then I made spaghetti and tossed salad and we dined on the deck- at my mother-in-law's house. She and mom agreed with me that the cake this year was divine.