Reader, today is my birthday!
I tell you this for two reasons - 1) so that you can join in this celebration of me (if I could send you all cake, I would!), and 2) so that I can make a request of you, a gift I want from you all please and thank you:
RAISE YOUR EXPECTATIONS.
I saw a TikTok a few days ago of a woman whose husband had forgotten it was her birthday. He didn’t wish her a happy birthday, their children didn’t make her cards, there were no gifts or birthday hugs or cake. There was no sorry after realising his mistake. The TikTok was supposed to be ‘funny’, a passive aggressive statement about what a ‘man’ he was *puke emoji*
Obviously it depressed my tits clean off.
After watching that TikTok and spending the last few weeks swimming in talks about my birthday with family and friends, making plans for myself, them making plans for me, it got me thinking a bit how we take up space in celebration of ourselves. How it can be difficult to not feel a bit silly at wanting to be celebrated. How hard it can be to let people give to us. How we can err on the side of ‘you don’t need to make a fuss’, of ‘it’s nothing’, when actually, it’s just another day we want to, and should feel, seen.
There were one or two birthdays in distant years, when I was alone and mothering small children. Where I spent the day in a space of giving and feeling like I hadn’t received much, that niggling resentment that so easily seeps in when mothering is overwhelming. Not realising that I could (and should) expect more. I could give myself more, in fact. That I could of prioritised celebrating myself, raised my own birthday game. But there was an embarrassment maybe? Kind of like it was needy (I mean, needy as a concept when we really dig in ? wtf! Of course I have needs… it’s like, human) or a bit uncouth to mention you want to celebrate the day you born. LOL.
That version of myself? I’m sorry she can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Because she’s dead.
Nowadays? Throw me a goddamn parade! Shit, I’ll throw it myself and you’re all invited!
And when it’s your birthday? Tell me immediately so we can party in the way that makes you feel most alive and loved.
Birthdays have become a bigger and bigger deal in our house over the years. There are balloons and banners and gifts, singing and love and cakes that are discussed for weeks and made with love. We expect to make a complete fuss of each other, we expect to be made a fuss of in return.
The day we came into the world that means we get to live our lives alongside one another is important.
As I love to do, I want to bring you back to the fact that we’re all gonna die. Our days here are finite. If you can’t expect to be treasured and celebrated, by yourself, by those around you, are you even really living?
And I’ll tell you a secret - those people who love and cherish you? They want to celebrate you. They want to show you they love you via the medium of fancy dinners and flowers and happy birthday sung down the phone and drawings of you as a mermaid and chocolate cakes with golden stars.
Just as they hope to be cherished in this way, too.
Expect this from them.
Expect this from yourself.
Do this for them.
Do this for yourself.
And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go eat some exquisite cake and lie around feeling loved and full.
Happy my birthday to us all!
Lx
PS. A little extra note today to say THANK YOU. To everyone who reads whatever this is and is becoming, who takes time to email me and comment here and generally makes me happy and grateful for this space. I cherish you, even when it’s not your birthday!)
Happy Birthday Laura! Celebrate hard!! xx
Love everything about this! I bought myself presents on my last birthday and it was magic. Have a glorious one Laura 💕