It's My Birthday!

He reaches across the table and takes my beer in his hand. He tips it back into his mouth, taking an unpermitted swig. When he comes up, his lips drip with foam. He lisps, “You just love your birthday.” 

I nod, smile. “I do.” 

“I bet you do.” He slurs, leering like a starved predator. 

I blink, doe-eyed and unrelenting. In his eyes, I am dumb. It makes him laugh. Spit, bubbles in his throat. He starts to cough. He thinks I’m silly, that I lack substance. I am simple; he thinks my life is simple. How nice is that? 

Look at how nice I can be. Come to my birthday party, there will be cake. My boyfriend will put his card on the table, and you don’t have to pay him back. It’s my birthday, it’s my treat. No, don’t bring me a gift. You’re the gift. Just be my friend. Just come to my party. 

I was born at 10:20 AM on December 20th, 1999. I was meant to be born on December 31st, but I was induced early. The doctors were worried about Y2K. 

I was born sick. I had a fever. They thought it might be meningitis. I had a spinal tap. I was in the NICU until the new millennium. I was very dramatic back then. I cost my parents a lot of out-of-pocket money for the flu. But I was a baby, and who could blame a baby for being born sick? 

I am a Sagittarius, but I’m a Capricorn cusp. I am spontaneous and outgoing, but obsessive and stubborn. My Moon is in Taurus–that’s why I’m always right–my Rising is in Aquarius–that’s why I’m bad at texting–and my Venus is in Scorpio–that’s why I’m a great kisser. That explains everything, right? That excuses everything, right? 

I was born at 10:20 AM on December 20th, 1999. I have celebrated my birthday on December 14th, on the 18th, on the 21st, on June 20th–what day works best for you? I know my birthday is an inconvenience. I am overshadowed by Jesus. Thats the Sagg talking, such a drama queen. 

My birthday typically fell on the last day of classes, the day most kids would skip, their parents packing them up into their SUVs to head for Poughkeepsie, or Grandma’s, or the Dominican Republic. 

I celebrated many a birthday with cupcakes at empty lunch tables, during Christmas parties with my birthday as a footnote. I cancelled celebrations, citing sickness or snowstorms, but really it was because so few had RSVP’d. I couldn’t bear the embarrassment. 

My mother started planning Mother-Daughter outings for my birthday, as a way to disguise the disappointment. We went to the American Girl Café, we went to see Beauty and the Beast, we drove up to the mountains, had a hot cocoa at a ski resort we couldn’t afford to stay at. 

There were a few successful birthday parties. In the first grade, I had my second-grade class at the iceplex. I wore a figure skating costume and a tiara. I announced the boy I had a crush on was my birthday prince. He wore a crown, too. 

In the third grade, I had a slumber party. I invited the girls who hadn’t invited me to their birthdays. My mother paid for an expensive cake, shaped like a teddy bear and iced with baby blue frosting. One girl woke up in the middle night and took a fist to the cake. She punched in the head, his nose dripping, his ear blown off. We woke to cake tracked all along the kitchen floor. 

My birthday ushers in a new calendar year; the year plays catch-up. I’m always eleven days faster. I turn 26 on December 20th, 2025. On the 31st, everyone will celebrate another year passed. I’ve survived another year. Have your champagne, throw your resolutions into the fire, and have your peppermint bark. But, will you please come to my party? 

I make a big deal out of my birthday. I buy the party dress and blow up the balloons. I invite everyone I know, and I let them invite their friends of friends. I offer free drinks and free food. I make concessions, we can go to dinner, or stay in, even. 

It’s painful to admit, but last year I think may have been the first year I didn’t cry on my birthday. Maybe it was turning 25, and my brain was fully cooked. Maybe it was finally feeling secure in who I am. But I just didn’t care. 

I didn’t care about those who didn’t come or those who RSVP’d yes and then didn’t show. I wasn’t mad or resentful or disappointed. I didn’t wonder if it meant there was something wrong with me. I didn’t think that their not coming to my party meant they hated me.

 I was surrounded by people who loved me. Who danced to every song I put on the playlist. The people who batted the balloons around like we were playing volleyball. People who held my hand through 25, and this year will pull me into 26. 

That being said, will you PLEASE come to my party? 

 It’s cold out, I know. You’re out of town, no worries, see you next year! 

I understand it’s an inconvenience. It sure was for my mother. I was an inconvenient, accidental baby. She had two boys under four at home and a husband with a new job, living in a different state. 

But she had me, and I’m here, even though it's inconvenient. 

It’s inconvenient to travel to your family’s home. It’s inconvenient when your friend needs a ride to the airport or a shoulder to cry on. 

It’s inconvenient to spend a frigid Saturday night in Bushwick celebrating your friend’s meaningless birthday. But isn’t inconvenience the cost of friendship? 

And I’ll cash in on that cost when you come to my birthday!! 

If you don’t come, it’ll be ok. I’ll still go out, I’ll wear the crown and dance with the people who came to celebrate my inconvenient existence. I’ll have too many dirty shirleys. I’ll trip outside, into the cold, taking a breather. 

The patio is empty, save for myself and this drunk man. He sits across the table from me. I’m at Union Pool, in my party dress. It’s a taffeta thing, and it blows in the winter wind. 

He tugs at my sash, which reads “Birthday Princess.” He looks to the sky wistfully, the clouds whipping past to reveal a waxing moon. 

He burps, takes another sip. “Being born around the holidays, that must make you feel special.” He grins, leaning in close so that I could smell his cigarette-tinged breath. 

“All the lights are for you.”  

I smile, I nod.