Sharing Birthdays

The topic that I am complaining about today is something that has been a family curse not only in my family, but also in my friends’ families. I’m pretty sure we are not in the minority with this issue – sharing our birthdays either with a holiday or another family member.

I have one friend who had a huge family. Almost everyone in their family shares a birthday with another family member, whether it’s a sibling, cousin, auntie, uncle – you get it. I have two family members and a friend who get screwed every Christmas because their birthdays are too close to Christmas. So instead of getting a separate Christmas and birthday gift, they only get one big one or a bunch of little insignificant ones. I have a couple of women friends whose birthdays are close to Valentine’s Day and God forbid if it’s also a Friday during Lent – good thing they like seafood.

Thanks to my mother, my immediate family shares this dreaded curse. My mother was my grandfather’s father’s day gift. Yep, she was born around Father’s Day. Now with the recently added Juneteenth holiday, her birthday has become the trifecta. Then she decided to have kids. One child was born near Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday. I guess the good thing is that we’re usually off for their birthday. Another child was born near Independence Day. Even though people were off and the weather was always beautiful, they all had their own Independence Day parties. It was often a lonely birthday party unless they held the celebration on a different day. Only one of my mother’s children avoided the birthday curse. Fortunately, the curse did not continue in the next generation of the immediate family.

If you are in the same boat as my family and friends are, you all have my love and sympathy. Being in this birthday curse has made me want to celebrate people’s birthdays more. It is the one day that it should be all about you. When you have to share it, it sucks. You don’t want extra Easter or Halloween candy or extra pie on Thanksgiving – you want one day where people show you that they are thankful for you. The day that you get your flowers, not along with your sister or cousin. I seriously understand why some people say screw their birthdays altogether, and they choose to celebrate their half-birthday, so they get one day of the year that is just their own.

With this post, I am celebrating the victims of the shared birthday curse. You are allowed to cry if you want to. Yet, I hope that you celebrate the gift of being alive another year and have no shame dancing naked while eating your cake. Because it’s the one day of the year that you should do what makes you happy, even if you have to celebrate it alone. Enjoy your own damn company. Happy Birthday to us!

Until next time!