Thursday 6 August 2015

I Don't Like Birthdays!

I don't like birthdays. I don't like the fuss that they generate, it makes me anxious. I much prefer run of the mill, ordinary days, where surprises are less likely to arrive out of the blue and expectations are generally low. Before you accuse me of being a total misery-guts let me just say that I’m quite happy to celebrate other people's birthdays. It’s just that where my own are concerned I have a history of things not running smoothly. In fact, some might say I’m jinxed.  

Casting my mind back over the years, I don't even know where to start. Maybe the time I fell down the stairs as I was heading out to celebrate and didn't realise until the next morning that I’d broken my arm. Or there was the one where I visited my sister in London and arrived home late Saturday night only for the cash machine to swallow my card. I consequently had a forty minute walk home and not a penny to my name until the banks reopened on the Monday. Still not convinced? How about the time I ended up in A&E when a rambunctious sailor inexplicably rubbed vinegar into my friend's eyes (don't even ask!)?

The jewel in the crown though, the one which is unsurpassable in its jinxedness, happened just a few years ago. I knew it wasn't going to be a good day from the get go. After all, my dad had only just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and so it was understandable that my family would forget, reeling as they were under the weight of something far more important. However, little did I know that every single other person in my life, except for one, would also forget. And in the end I’d wish that the lone well wisher had forgotten as well.

This particular person called me a couple of days before the 'big day' and informed me that she’d booked a spa day for the two of us and another friend. Predictably, given my previous birthday form, the day came around and the friend who’d arranged the 'treat' called early to say she was ill and couldn't make it. All was not lost, however, as I was still meeting the remaining member of our celebrating trio at the spa. This though was when the day really began to descend into surrealism and I started to suspect that I was trapped in some bleak European art house film. The said friend quickly informed me that she couldn't stay long as she’d managed to book herself an appointment with the much in demand spa hair stylist. She then thrust a card and gift at me but, before I could get excited, said that they were for another friend with an upcoming birthday for which she wouldn't be around. 


Worse than being forgotten was the creeping sense of dread that she might at any moment remember and there would follow the indignity of all the embarrassment and fuss that would bring. I was literally counting the minutes until her hair appointment and then it was just me. I spent my birthday alone with a bunch of strangers, flitting from a boiling hot sauna to a freezing cold ice room, pretending that I gave a hoot about the natural exfoliating effects. And worse was yet to come as, one by one over the following week, people remembered and I had to relive the whole tawdry experience.


So who could blame me for saying that birthdays are really not my cup of tea? And if you’re still not convinced, I do have more evidence filed away in my back catalogue of birthdays from hell.

11 comments:

  1. I am totally with you on my dislike of birthdays. Mine comes shortly after Christmas so everyone is bored with the whole celebration thing anyway by then and I'd happily forget it. Some years people do and then I have to go through the embarrassment of them ringing and apologising when they remember, or look in their diaries later on. One classic year I was invited out to lunch by my mother to meet up with some relatives of hers (and presumably mine as well I guess) and the fact that it was my birthday wasn't even mentioned...and that's my mother!

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  2. How very rude, G. Actually on reflection I might just be a misery guts because I don't like Christmas either :D

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  3. Nothing wrong with that E, perfectly normal to hate Christmas - I think these things come under the 'organised' or 'enforced' fun title that we both dislike.

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  4. I come from an enormous family and birthdays are a big deal, celebrated with everything we can throw at them. My husband, on the other hand, is miserable being in the birthday hotseat, and prays every year that my over-the-top celebrating will somehow be forgotten. (He's been known to leave the country on business trips that just "happen" to come up.) He would completely sympathize with you!

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    1. I'd definitley be on that business trip, Barb :D

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  5. My birthdays are usually shit. Every year I hope it will be fab but it rarely is, so I have decided to just treat them as a normal day, from now on. Pity it took me so long to get round to that!!!

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    1. That is the sensible birthday route, I agree, T.

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  6. The trouble with August birthdays is that all your friends are away on holiday. I loved my 21st but my 30th was dreadful. Nowadays we are often away on holiday just hubby & me & that's fine.

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    1. Being away on holiday for your birthday sounds ideal :D

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  7. I celebrate my birthday with immediate family. It's a big deal (we often leave it to the weekend and have a day out together). Otherwise, I don't tend to mention it to people. That seems to work for us.

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    1. That sounds like a pretty good way of celebrating :D

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