It’s my twentieth birthday. We’re about to leave for a night out in Montreal. I go to the bathroom and count the list of things going wrong. I spent too much money today. We didn’t go to the museum. My foundation looks too dark. My hair looks too frizzy. I start to cry.
Crying on my birthday is a yearly tradition that has been a part of my life since the very first one. Somehow, on what’s supposed to be one of the best days of the year, I always find a reason to become upset, sometimes for the entire day, sometimes for five minutes. When I turned nine, it was because I felt like people were excluding me at my own party. When I turned fifteen, it was because Hilary lost the election.
But it’s not these specific occurrences that cause the floodgates to open on November 9, not really. The truth is that there’s always been an underlying sadness, a mourning, that haunts me the entire day until I have a good cry. I like to call this phenomenon “Birthday Grief.”
The origins of Birthday Grief stem from many factors, one of which is the intensely high expectations I set for my special day. For whatever reason, my mind has convinced me that a girl’s birthday should be the best of her entire life, and each one should top the other. She should do everything she sets out to do for the day, accompanied by her enormous group of perfect friends, all while taking the most flawless, Vogue-worthy photos to capture every moment.
Obviously, I’ve never met those unattainable requirements on any of the 20 birthdays I’ve celebrated. Still, almost every year, something inside me says “this could be the one!” on the lead up to the day. When I fail to meet my own impossible expectations, I become extremely disappointed in myself. This is where the grieving begins, where the tears originate.
Another reason I experience Birthday Grief, a more shrouded and buried reason, is because of my intense fear of aging. One thing about birthdays that you don’t exactly realize until you get older is the fact that every year you get older. With every candle I blow out, a part of my childhood is ending, and there are things I’m just never going to get back. The clothes I used to wear don’t fit me anymore. My purple childhood room is beige now. People I used to call my sisters avoid me at bars. I’m forced to swallow huge pills like these every time my age increases.
My fear of aging doesn’t stop at the physical changes that come with getting older, although I’m scared of those as well. Mainly, I’m worried that my best days are behind me, and I won’t achieve all the dreams little me once had. This is an aspect of my Birthday Grief that I never address, instead hiding it behind petty issues like discoloured foundation. But I’ve always known it was there.
In my view, the best way to overcome Birthday Grief is by being honest with yourself. What do you actually want to do on your birthday? Who do you actually want to spend it with? Are you really just crying because your hair is too frizzy? Or is it something deeper? By asking ourselves these questions, we can outsmart our minds telling us what we “need” to do or how we “need” to feel. Talking to friends openly and candidly about how we feel can also help to calm fears about aging, because there’s a huge chance other people have had the exact same feelings at one point. Overall, it’s important to live your special day the way you want to live it.
Now, back to my twentieth birthday. After I finished crying, I came out of the bathroom to face my friend, who asked if I was okay. If I could have done things differently, I would have said that I was scared to outgrow my teenage years. We would have all taken off our makeup, made pasta, had a movie night, then danced to Taylor Swift songs until there were none left to play. We would have talked about our fears until the sun came up, then went out for brunch.
Instead, I asked my friend if my foundation was too dark.