Interior Monologue

I give up celebrations. Up until the age of 27 I believed that birthdays and anniversaries are days to celebrate, cherish, and just be joyful. They are days that people must set aside as non-negotiable days. After all, it was the day that I was born! I was presented to this world from the warmth of my mother's womb alive and kicking. It was the day that I became a living, independent entity. Therefore, all of us absolutely must celebrate birthdays. The same goes for anniversaries - esp. wedding anniversaries. It was the day that me and my husband took vows in front of literally thousands of people. It was the day that we stepped into the world of marriage, we changed the status of relationship forever - it was a fundamental shift. Therefore, it too demands celebrations.

I believed so strongly, so passionately about celebrating these important occassions with my husband. I dreamt even as a little girl that I will find a man who will understand just how terribly vital these celebrations are that he will move heaven and earth to make sure that we celebrate them. This trust in a mythical man helped me tolerate underwhelming, sometimes awful birthdays. Unfortunately, we had to fight to barely meet...leave alone celebrate. My birthday was a struggle. His birthday was missed. Our first anniversary was a disaster. Our second anniversary was forced through fear rooted in history. I fought and fought for us to celebrate.

But now I give up. M and millions will always be a struggle. No matter how many things I sacrifice, how many personality traits of his and mine I transform - I will always lose. The millions will always win. The power of millions will triumph over me. This point was driven home to me through a cruel call in the middle of the night that took away my distraught husband to chase the millions. What can a tiny girl with sleepy eyes say when a million dollar cheque is waging in front of us? 'No thank you, I'd rather cherish my birth instead?' The cheque doesn't care. And without the cheque, I'd quickly be celebrating my death anniversary! So I give in. No more celebrations. I have no fight in me. There is too much life to live. Too many other things I should be shedding my tears over. I cannot fool myself into believing that celebrating important days is a beautiful thing when all my life events have consistently proven otherwise. So I give up celebrating.

Therefore, I mark 2011 as the year that I gave up celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. I have built a sturdy cognitive consistency by completely altering my perceptions on this matter. First, renouncing celebrations frees me from dissapointments. Second, what is a birthday anyway? It just the day that I officially add an extra year to my age. Big deal. Third, yes the actual day that we got married was important. But the subsequent years are again just the date that you can officially add an extra year of having been married. I've decided that I will slowly remove all forms of attachment to those days by making a singular effort to NOT celebrate. There will be no drinks, there will be no partying, there will be no special dinner, there will be no special card. That day must be marked by mundaneness. If anyone tries to celebrate it (such as my tireless mother), I will be rudely honest about NOT celebrating. Yes, it will hurt her - but her hurt does not slow me down, mine does.

I mourn my last ever childish dream. Therefore, on the day I've turned 28, I would like to say that I'm officially stepping into old lady land!