My last good birthday was when I turned 17. I felt like I was on top of the world, at the doorstep of adulthood; everything was bright and amazing and full of possibilities. I had a party and a big cake and friends and gifts, and I thought it was going to be the start of a great adventure. Yeah right. Biggest let-down of a lifetime.
Now I’m an adult, and every birthday is just the celebration of another year in which I have again done nothing noteworthy with my life. I’m already melancholic now, 2 weeks in advance, because based on statistics of previous birthdays, this is going to happen:
Things that generally happen on my birthday
- Being all alone during the day because everyone has to work/go to hobbies/see friends… except for me.
- Awkward gift from my parents that proves how out-of-touch they are with me.
- Nothing interesting at all.
- Awkwardly forced cheerfulness when cake is served in the evening.
- Scrolling through old friends’ FB pages and realizing that I’m the only one who isn’t traveling the world, going on exchanges, attending concerts, raving the night away, etcetera.
- A pity party for one. It potentially includes crying, lying on a ball on my bed, and wallowing in self-loathing. Also, passive aggressive tweets about how my life sucks and I hate everyone.
- Clicking from site to site and hoping someone online remembered it’s my birthday.
- Inspecting my reflection for signs of permanent frown lines and eye wrinkles.
- Checking my phone for texts of someone who remembered it’s my birthday.
- Being pathetically lonely.
- Pondering how all my opportunities are fading with the years and how I will soon be 45 and not have done anything worth mentioning.
Do I sound like the Birthday Grinch yet?
We're All Mad Inhere 
I hope your birthday fails to live down to your darkest expectations. At the risk of sounding poly-anish, do something unexpected (that’s not dangerous). Find a fashionable quantum physicist and travel to Hollywood for a studio viewing of “Big Bang Theory.” 🙂
Sometimes I find myself wondering if things need to suck so much or if we’re just told they should suck if they don’t fit the mold. But keep in mind, the Grinch has a happy ending 🙂
Writing down the whole list of reasons why my birthday is awful did put my whining a bit in perspective; by simply awaiting a suckish birthday, I was sort of making sure that it would suck. I’m not a celebrity or even a person of interest to many people apart from my direct relatives, so I can’t expect others to make my birthday awesome without effort from my side.
I think we often fool ourselves into thinking we have no power over the sucky things in our life, and exactly that is what’s making those things suck so much.
I’ve taken some precautions now, I hope I will get my happy birthday ending too ^_^
I know I make myself think I can do anything to make things stop sucking. We can though, you’re right!
I always make sure I do something special for myself on my birthday!
I hope you have a good one!
Hello QP, what is your experience like in a Psychiatric Ward? I was in one before.
I hope you are doing well.