I hate birthdays

[breakinglight11]

I have a birthday coming up on Sunday. I keep having people asking me if I’m doing anything for it and the answer is trying to wish it away. Truth is I’m feeling even more distaste for it this year than usual. Great, one year older, one year closer to my metabolism slowing down and my skin losing its resilience. I’ve looked bad enough lately, rough and lifeless and dull, and if I’m getting to this point at twenty-fucking-four it’s all downhill from here.

I hate birthdays, fear of aging aside. I say that every year, though I think I’ve reached a record high for hatred this time around. I don’t believe people should be feted just for existing. I’d rather celebrate you for something you did, and I’d prefer the same for myself. Frankly I could use a whole mess of people paying attention to me and treating me like I’m special, pathetic as it is, given how badly I’ve been feeling lately, but I’d rather it be for something estimable I did rather than something I had nothing to do with. Plus my parents just spent a bundle to fix my car and are still trying to buy me a birthday present, which just seems disgustingly wrong to me. I’m not four, for Christ’s sake, I’m twenty-four. I no longer must be treated as if my simple existence is something worth rewarding.

Bah. Stupid birthdays. Stupid aging. An I just die at twenty-nine before I hit the ae wall like a ton of bricks?

Comments

[katiescarlett29.livejournal.com]

You're not going to hit the age wall like a ton of bricks, silly. If there's anyone I know who will age gracefully, it's you. <3

[morethings5.livejournal.com]

Can we just lump all of your incredible achievements of the past year into one big celebration? Maybe we could even hold that celebration at the tail-end of one of your greatest achievements, say conning a massively successful LARP convention with a ton of amazing games (or, you know, at least three of them).

[crearespero.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting I a technically older than you. O.O

[john-in-boston.livejournal.com]

A slower metabolism is actually one of the only things I'm looking forward to as I grow older. Socially-imposed body image issues come in all types, I suppose.

Birthdays aren't just a celebration of your existence, they're a day designed to celebrate all that is you. We don't usually celebrate George Washington's accomplishments on each of the days that he accomplished them (at least not specifically for him), and we don't celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s life on the day that he delivered the "I Have a Dream" speech or any of his other landmark victories in the struggle for civil rights. Birthdays are more of a catch-all, designed to all the things that you personally have done over the course of your life. After all, those things make up a very large percentage of what makes you the person you are.

[john-in-boston.livejournal.com]

*Designed to celebrate.

[lisefrac.livejournal.com]

As someone who just had an awesome thirty-first birthday, I say, it is not all downhill from where you're at, unless all your accomplishments are purely physical. And I'm pretty sure they're not.