When I was a wee one, I don’t remember when exactly, I read about birthday parties in a book and asked my mother if I could have one.
And that wholly innocent question started an endless recurrence of Not Good ever since.
I don’t tend to wish to go back in time very often, because I’m a bit of the clan of “hit the wall, bounce back, then reconsider reality and reasonable options”.
But if I could go back in time to the moment before I asked that question and stopped myself, I really totally would.
Y’see.
Apparently there is nothing so ungrateful and ridiculous and absolutely unreasonable as a child wanting a birthday party, because that would be celebrating the child, when it should be the mother being celebrated on that anniversary of labor.
As she put it, going into labor is like putting one foot into the gates of the netherworld — how could I possibly ask for a celebration of that day, on my behalf?
Even worse, how could I ask, when I was already so ill-mannered to have been born late?
Never mind that according to folk knowledge, first-borns often come late.
Never mind that according to science, babies are born in a two week window around the estimated due date.
Never mind all that; it was obviously my fault I took my own sweet time being born instead of coming early like my brother did.
I found out later that I was supposed to be a boy and then I turned out to be very much not a boy, and that was a Huge Disappointment to my paternal grandmother and also “necessitated” that my mother repeat the pregnancy ordeal when I’d (yes, me. All me.) had already given her Complications. Long-term complications, at that.
It would’ve been one thing if she’d let that extremely ill-considered request pass by with that one prolonged and vehement refusal, but for the next few decades I’d routinely get in trouble on my birthday.
For some reason obscured to everyone, a complete mystery how it just so happened I always had to be scolded or lectured on my birthday.
On at least two occasions things escalated to full-out shouting and hysterical crying on my part.
Utterly incomprehensible how that just happened to conveniently happen on that day.
I’d suspected she was holding a grudge about my request way back when for years, but I never had proof.
Then what happened the year I was 33 or so simply completely turned me utterly off the idea of birthdays.
Or more accurately, completely turned me off the notion of being The Celebrated Main Character, ever.
I’d already had it stuck in my head that being celebrated, or wanting to be, was dangerous, but then it really got etched into my bones.
My cousin H had been very excited over my “12345 day”, or the day when it’d been 12345 days since my birth and he had been asking how I wanted to celebrate that particular milestone.
And he’d made the mistake of being hyped about it in front of my mother.
I saw her expression then, and had a twinge, but hoped it wouldn’t trigger The Birthday Grudge.
…of course it did.
She made a point of being snide and mean and awful to me the day before and the day of, so I ended up canceling all plans and hiding in my room.
All deserved, of course, because I wasn’t neat enough, wasn’t respectful enough, wasn’t ever enough. Like usual.
Then, recently, my mother suddenly decided she wanted her birthday celebrated.
I tried bringing up the “aren’t you supposed to celebrate your mother?” thing, but she said that was what Mother’s Day and her birthday was for.
…which was an argument I’d used before to no avail, but who’s counting?
So, because my mother likes believing she’s very rational and fair and righteous — if she wants her birthday celebrated, obviously the rest of us should have celebrations too.
Never mind that not only do I have intense trauma around the subject, but she still hasn’t really set down the grudge, so why even bother poking the hornet’s nest?
It’s made much more awkward this year because she’s feuding with her younger sister, who also happens to be my godmother, who also happens to be the one elder figure in my life who remembered my birthday and made a point of bringing me cake in years prior.
Never mind that I suspect her remembering was aided by my tech savvy younger cousins. She brought me my favorite strawberry cake on at least two birthdays when my parents had entirely forgotten and hadn’t even mentioned it.
It’s one thing for it to be preferable that your parents forget your birthday because less trauma incoming, but it’s still another for them to utterly let it pass without a mention and for someone else to bring you cake.
Anyway.
So she’s feuding with my godmother. And in past years, if I did a celebration, it was always with my godmother and my cousins along with whoever was around at the time.
Not an option this year because the mere mention of her siblings drives my mother into a deep and abiding rage.
And I don’t much feel like celebrating with my mom in the first place, and it feels like a sort of betrayal to not celebrate with my godmother when she was the one who cared in the past, so…easier to just …not.
I didn’t arrive at this stage lightly.
Some part of me wants to reclaim my birthday, but y’know, some things cannot be reclaimed.
There’s no way I’m able to reclaim “yellow”, for example.
And yeah, she put forth the labor and did the time with all her pregnancy woes, so I guess my mother can have my birthday if she wants it.
Then, on some level, it’s appealing to think of having a secret birthday.
I thought about spring equinox because I like that solar term, but it’s way off in March and strawberries go out of season in Taiwan long before then.
What’s a celebration without fresh strawberry cake?
So maybe it’s going to be Usui or Rainwater, which is around February 18 most years. I like the idea of rainfall and nourishing spring, particularly as it sort of fits with being the water-bearer in my Western zodiac. But it goes against the superstition of not celebrating one’s birthday late.
I’d say maybe if we didn’t call it a birthday celebration… but the mind knows what it knows.
I also like Spring Begins and it was actually my first choice, but it’s February 4th and too at hand this year to consider.
Also Mom is apparently going to Be Around and …yeah no.
I might still test drive it by going out and doing a day alone, eat what I want, and just hang. I can arrange for a date with people next year.
We’ll see. Pandemic and all.