Growing a Year Older

November 26th is my birthday but to me, I will probably treat it as a normal day. If I really think about it, every day is someone’s birthday somewhere in the world.

It’s dreadful being asked what I want as a present/gift. The question makes me feel like I am being put on the spot. And as I am unemployed and stuck in a scarcity complex, I usually can’t come up with an answer. It’s nice that someone wants to give me a present, but then I feel unnecessary pressure to name something that has a lot of monetary value just because it’s for a special occasion. I really was asked this question by someone recently. The response I gave was a bit lackluster. “I don’t know; nothing special.”

I used to get a birthday cake every year. Typically my mom did the cake ordering. The most common I had in childhood was sponge cake filled with cream and strawberries. I vaguely remember having an ice cream cake but what I loved most was red velvet cake. The yearly “tradition” phased out because of lots of reasons, though I don’t really miss having a cake. I never had parties for my birthdays (unless I count my 1 year old party where half of my mom’s extended family showed up, which I have no recollection of lol), so the cake almost always had leftovers.

So far I’ve said mostly not very positive things about my birthday. Too much of what I associate with it comes from my dislike of where I am in life now. I don’t even want to think about the actual number for my biological age, just because on a mental level I feel so much younger than that. It’s embarrassing. Every year, I get this idealized image of what someone my age should be like. Maybe even in a different world, I would never match up because I would not be focused on just being myself.