my birthday curse

Happy birthday to me! (well not quite yet, I'm writing this at 11pm on the 27th, though I guess it is in my usual timezone) As of january 28th I'm officially 23! Not a particularly special age. Between CMAT's I'm 23 and everyone is having fun except for me and blink-182's nobody likes you when you're 23 this year is not looking too bright for me not gonna lie. Like dude, look at my 23 playlist, this looks miserable.

 Of course, I jest, I joke. I have high hopes for this year, not sure why, but I feel like it's gonna be a good one. Having a january birthday is funny, because a new year is so close to your birthday. It's easy to measure time like that, new year, new age, new hope.

Back to the post title, let me tell you about my birthday curse.

I think it started when I was 18. Previously, my birthdays had been pretty alright. I was a very depressed teenager, so obviously there was some angst surrounding the day, but other than that I usually spent it with friends or family. But I digress. My 18th birthday, which I was quite excited for, happened during the pandemic. I was allowed to invite 3 friends and all of them were still underage and my parents (who were very strict about underage drinking) were home, so I didn't even get to have my first legal drinks until months later. 

On the eve of my 19th birthday party I had everything ready for my friends to come over, I baked a cake, I bought drinks, etc. Then, in the late evening hours, my dad decided to test for covid, since he'd been feeling ill for a couple of days. And, as you probably guessed, it was in fact covid. The entire household had to quarantine, no birthday party, no nothing. The four of us ate so much birthday cake we swore we'd never eat cake again. Definitely not the worst birthday, but I was still pretty bummed out. 

My 20th birthday takes the cake (haha). I was having a small family dinner with my grandparent and my aunt's family, it was nice, low-key, just a nice tradition in our family of throwing birthday get-togethers. And then my cat died. Just mid-dinner. I went to my room and sobbed for the rest of the night, and also through most of my birthday visit to my partner at the time.

21 was surprisingly good, except for a small kink in my plans. I was planning to fly to Scotland to go to a James Marriott gig with my boyfriend. I thought it was cool he was playing a show on my birthday, and figured I might as well treat myself to a fun trip. I had planned two days with my friend who lives in Edinburgh, then to go up to Glasgow for a day, and then fly back home the next day. What happens the day before my flight? Show gets cancelled. Still, I think it remains one of my favourite birthdays. I had a great weekend in Edi and then I met my boyfriend for the first time. We'd been dating for around a month at that point. I still vividly remember seeing him at a crossing in front of the train station and just knowing I love him, something clicked in my brain in that moment and we still look back at that day together as the day we fell in love.

22 was unremarkable, and extremely annoying. My birthday was sandwiched between two exams, both worth a big portion of my final grades, and eventually one of them was rescheduled to be on my birthday. On the following weekend my mum visited me and we went out for a nice italian dinner and a week before my boyfriend visited me, so it wasn't all bad, but what matters in the birthday curse is that specifically the day of my birth is shit. 

Now, I'm not sure what tomorrow holds. I hope I'll have a good day. I'm visiting my boyfriend and we planned to go to brunch to a cafe we really like, go around some bookshops or maybe some charity shops and places with trinkets, so I can get myself a birthday gift from myself and then have a night out. Unfortunately, I think my birthday curse ricocheted and hit my boyfriend who got really allergic to something. So we'll probably cut down on our programme, which isn't really bad at all and I don't think that qualifies for the birthday curse title. Whatever happens, we've already done some fun things this last week, so maybe I can forgive the universe for any possible birthday curses that might emerge tomorrow. I'll keep you updated.

The concept of a birthday is a bit silly, I know a lot of people prefer to ignore the day altogether, but for some reason it matters a lot to me. I like celebrating making it through another year. Maybe the pressure to have a good birthday is what makes it backfire so often, because you can't really expect everything will go right on this one specific day just for you. Nonetheless, I shall keep chasing the dream of my Great Birthday. And I'll keep celebrating with my loved ones in whatever way I can.