Birthday Blues

February 28th, 2006 • Related • Filed Under

It’s that time of the year for me again. My birthday is in a couple of days and I’m reacting exactly the same way I do every year. Those close to me will notice my June edginess and stay away. That’s right; stay away because nothing can change how I feel during this particular time of the year.

Two weeks before my birthday I start getting panic attacks. I review everything I have done over the last year and will always conclude that I haven¡¯t done enough. I think about how a year could¡¯ve possibly gone by with no significance. Anyone who hears this usually assumes that I¡¯m a rigid no-nonsense woman with clearly mapped annual goals. I don¡¯t. This stresses me out even more. I don¡¯t think I have achieved enough in a year but neither do I know what exactly I should have achieved! This will shoot me into an array of ¡°sort your life out¡± activities. These have included applying for new jobs, signing up for courses for self-betterment, asking for a raise and anything else I deem as needed to jumpstart my life.

Other than the above activities which are usually dived into without any real guarantee of actually materializing, I will usually find other ways to instigate fast, visible change. I blame this on being a Gemini and I honestly believe that qualities of our sign such as being hasty, impatient and quickly bored seem heightened during our month of June. This has got to be the logical explanation for my zany actions. Every year I get a new hairstyle when it’s near my birthday. It’s the quickest way to see change. I perm, straighten, colour or cut yearly without fail and I brazenly admit that I feel like my life has improved that little bit as I walk out of the salon.

Then there’s the usual question of what to do on your birthday. Everyone will ask this and the pressure on having a great birthday will usually knock me over. I’m not the type to have a big party and worry about everything being perfect and dealing with too much attention. So I’ll tell everyone and convince myself that birthdays are rubbish and all I really want to do is lie under the covers. The problem is I’ve done that and at the end of the day I felt absolutely horrible that everyone let me ruin my day and that it actually did in fact turn out as bad as I had imagined it to be. Let’s face it. Everyone secretly hopes that their birthdays will turn out to be a fantastic day with everyone doting on them. As for me, I’m going to see it as another excuse to party with my girlfriends and show off my new haircut.

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