I know it is unsophisticated to gush about your birthday before it happens, and the most, one day before it, I believe. But anything that happens on a normal Friday now feels like it is happening 4 days before the birthday. Birthdays are not important where I come from, at least not mine, my friend’s, maybe. So I could never set my expectations right. The dissonance it created was so massive, that I would cry, hormonal cycles would realign, and the universe would conspire to make me fear the day.
But last birthday was a breeze. This birthday feels like a festival and it’s not even here yet. So I must gush. Since 31st May I have been cocooned in love, so comfortable it has not even scared me yet. 31st May is when S has decided she wants my birthday to be, because “it is the highest number I can assign to your birthday. I want us to share a birthday month.” During this month I said and wrote the nicest and softest things about, things that made me like myself. Well, reasonably, mostly. Along with being given a book that I have been looking for, a tea kettle, and a pack of self-help stickers. tucked in a pink envelope, that tells me to take care of myself, a back-rub, jaljeera cocktails, customized cupcakes, tiny plants and cacti, and an egg that tells me I am eggcellent. And I feel eggcellent. For the first time in my life, I find myself not thinking of why and if at all I deserve the love, these kind acts. No guilt, almost unworrying of giving enough back, this love flows into me. It is not even insecure. I think I grew entitled. Yesterday I asked A to drop me somewhere I needed to go. I was not going to drive or take Uber, “because it’s going to be my birthday,” I said.
It makes no sense. They must have switched 25 on early. So all day today, I am going to write about turning 25, for the last time from 24.