Thoughts on my Birthday

My relationship to birthdays has always been an awkward and unusual one.

I love going out to make a big event out of someone's birthday, but when it comes to my own I am the exact opposite. Outwardly, I don't like to make a big thing of my birthday, but secretly I do.

There's never an urge to plan anything; no "Hey let's all go get shit faced to celebrate!". It actually has a lot to do with guilt and self-confidence: I don't like to tell people that it's my birthday because I don't want them to feel obliged to come out for it. I want them to call me up and say "let;s go drinking" from their own choice. On the other hand, I never feel obliged to go out and have a bash for someone's birthday, even if it's a big arranged celebration. It's hypocritical, and I know it, but I just don't want people to feel forced to show up. Along the same line of thinking, if the evening doesn't end up being lots of fun, I don't want to feel guilty for "forcing" them to have been present. I'm weird like that.

My process of thinking only harms myself - I know that. Typically, by the late hours of my birthday, I tend to feel down on myself. Common thoughts of "Man, this sucks...I didn't do anything for my birthday" float around my mind. As I replay those thoughts over and over again in my mind, they get twisted to "My friends don't care about me" or "I'm not worth it". It's actually really pathetic.

Yesterday's birthday was no different - I was at home all day and felt down on myself. I ended up really unhappy by midnight and kind of felt like crying, although I didn't. (You don't realize how much of a loser it feels to even admit that). I ended up

The feeling only lasts for that day. By the next morning I'm amped up to go out and have fun with friends. Today, on Canada Day (there'll be another post about this), I hung out with Liz, Mike and others. We celebrated my birthday, with inferior generic-cake, to which I was embarrassed but inwardly very happy. Uh, I'm so weird.