BY LANA SCHWARTZ | lana.schwartz925@gmail.com
If there is one single thing that every single person in the entire world has in common — it’s that each of us, whether or not we choose to acknowledge it — has a birthday.
There is a single day in which we came into the world, known each year after that as our birthday. How you choose to celebrate your birthday, if you choose to celebrate it at all, is at your own discretion. Or at least typically it is once you’re past the age of five.
What is appropriate to mark the anniversary of the day in which you joined the living? I must admit that as I got older, I thought eventually my relationship with my birthday would change. It would become a day like any other, not really worthy of celebration or notice at all.
As it turns out about this, like so many other things, I was wrong. Birthdays remain rife with meaning, much to my chagrin. In my 20s, each birthday was celebrated with a party at a bar; the bigger the party, the more people I could get there, the later I could stay out, all the better. Now that I’ve reached my 30s, I actually have no idea what is appropriate to mark your existence on this planet anymore. To do nothing would be sad; to do something small would likely be appropriate, but can still leave one wanting; to do something big could result in disappointment. The worst part of it all is knowing that you can think you know what you want to do for your birthday, only to find it does not live up to the expectations you had in your head. Almost never does it exceed them.
Lacking true direction on what it is I want out of a birthday, I have continued each year to have a party. I pick a bar based on the ever-dwindling number of normal places to drink in Greenpoint. (Read: Places where a drink costs $15 or less that is not flooded with influencers, wannabe or otherwise.) I email my friends and tell them when and where I will be celebrating my birthday. I will not make a Partiful, not necessarily because I have moral objections to Partiful — though I do have those — but because the idea of watching those yes, nos, and maybes pile up floods me with anxiety. Once the email is sent, I hope for the best. I hope the weather holds out, that people show up, that all my friends get along, that I manage to find a cool outfit and that it looks good in pictures. The list is endless.
To me, this entire ritual, from top to bottom, is nothing short of humiliating. The want and need inherent in asking people to take time out of their lives to celebrate you is to be emotionally naked in front of everyone you know. It’s only made worse by those who reply and tell you they can’t make it, though they really wish they could be there; an invitation to a party, if it cannot be fulfilled, should go unacknowledged, like a small child’s spelling error. In the days leading up to my party, I want to claw my eyes out and cancel the whole thing. Then, the party comes. Typically, the weather holds out. My friends show up. I have a pretty good time, actually. I don’t always find a cool outfit or look good in pictures; still, I manage to survive.
Eleven months later, I forget all of this. I have no idea what to do for my birthday. The idea of celebrating at all fills me with dread. I ultimately decide I’ll have a party at a bar, the same one as last year. The cycle continues.
Anyway, I’m sure next year will be totally different.
Lana Schwartz is a writer who was born and raised in Queens and today lives in Brooklyn. Her writing has appeared on The New Yorker, The Onion, McSweeney’s, and more. She is the author of the books “Build Your Own Romantic Comedy” and “Set Piece.”
