It's My Party
I am a woman who neither curses the passing of time nor dwells on her age.
Tomorrow, when I turn 43-years-old, I will not say that I’m celebrating my fourteenth 29th birthday or become nostalgic when I’m not carded at dinner upon ordering a cocktail. There are a lot of people who don’t get to turn 43, after all, which is why I am choosing to raise my glass in honor of the years I’ve had the privilege of inhabiting this planet instead of worrying about the sum total.
With that said, while the number of candles on my cake has never been an issue for me, the “plan” to do almost anything on my birthday has always caused quite a bit of trouble.
As a person who has delayed, rescheduled, or entirely canceled more birthdays than I’ve ever celebrated, I can say with complete confidence that after the age of 10—and with the exception of a few milestones thereafter—birthday celebrations are absolute bullshit. Or rather, the expectation that a birthday celebration is actually going to happen as planned when that birthday occurs at any point between December and February, is absolute bullshit. Trust me, as the lyrics of the title track to this blog suggest, “you would cry too if it happened to you.”
I legitimately cannot remember the last time my birthday plans weren’t thwarted. For the last two years, plans were canceled for weather-related reasons, and the year before that, when several friends made plans to visit and celebrate my 40th, everyone got COVID. Then the time before that, the entire world was on lockdown so as to not get COVID, and before that, birthday plans were spoiled due to a variety of other reasons, including a car accident one year and a visit to the ER with my then toddler many years later.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t had a few good birthdays here and there, but when I jokingly tell people that I’ve only not had to cancel plans for maybe 7 birthdays in my 43 years, I’m actually not too far off base.
For people with winter birthdays, in addition to the sheer unfairness of having bad weather at least threaten to ruin our plans each year, there’s the frustration that accompanies the inevitable promise of a raincheck. “We’ll celebrate soon!” is a common platitude as is “When the weather gets warmer we’ll definitely reschedule dinner!” These rainchecks, I assure you, never happen. Sure, you may see the same people a few months post-birthday, but it’s no longer about you or your birthday, and no one is buying your dinner. In fact, the next gathering is usually for someone else’s birthday, and during the celebration a guest will most likely say, “The last time we were supposed to meet up was for YOUR birthday! Next year, girl, for sure!”
Every time this happens I want to say, “No, it won’t” and also, “So how about that raincheck?” But I can’t because then I look like an asshole for having the audacity to think I still might have the opportunity to celebrate my birthday in the same calendar year. Because when it’s beyond the obligatory one-week birthday observance window, you’re going to need to wait an additional 51 weeks to look forward to—and then to once again cancel—your birthday plans.
Equally frustrating for us winter babies are the people whose birthdays fall anytime the snow isn’t and still expect a banger of a birthday party every year. It’s like, hey, you were already blessed with July as your birth month; let’s go ahead and temper your expectation that someone also rents a party bus. Grabbing dinner with a few friends at a chain restaurant on a Tuesday night in simple acknowledgment of a January birth would suffice. But rentals and actual gifts? People born in the winter would never dare assume our loved ones would do something so grand. Hell, by spring, we’ve already missed our window to remind them they were supposed to take us out for a birthday-raincheck-cocktail!
And to the springtime happy birthday babies, please stop asking us why we don’t wait to celebrate until our half birthdays during the summer. There’s a simple reason why we don’t: Because that’s not when we were born. Also, I’ll soon be 43. I have a mortgage and get yearly mammograms and most nights I’m in bed by 9:00 p.m. There’s no way I’m celebrating a half birthday at this stage of my life. Although, in all sincerity, you’re a springtime happy birthday baby for a reason, and I know you’re only trying to help.
At this point you may be wondering why I didn’t save “Making Plans to Celebrate Winter Birthdays” as one of my 2025 Grievances, and the reason for that is equally as simple: Because by next December when I publish my annual grievances, I will (hopefully) only be a few weeks shy of my next birthday and it will be too easy for you to say, “Let’s make up for it this year, girl!” And then, when we inevitably cancel those plans less than four weeks following the publication of the blog, I will be forced to hold you to that mid-March raincheck dinner, and we both know you can’t take that kind of pressure.
To my fellow winter babies who have also suffered through regularly canceled birthday plans: On Sunday, I will raise my glass to you, too… Unless of course my dinner plans are rescheduled, in which case I offer no rainchecks. Cheers!
My 40th birthday was one of the rare occassions when plans were successfully rescheduled for March of the same year. Many thanks to my very best friends, Carrie and Melissa, for staying true to their promise of a raincheck.