Member-only story
Why I Don’t Celebrate My Birthday
Most people think it’s because I hate admitting to getting another year older. I could care less. It’s not like stressing over the clock will make it reverse.
The reason I don’t like celebrating my birthday goes back to my childhood. Leading up to my fifth birthday, my mother and father were at the breaking point in their marriage. And my mother had threatened to leave again. But this time my father didn’t beg her to stay.
So the Countdown Began
“I’m leaving on Lisa’s birthday.” And as each day passed, the threats got louder and more hurtful.
Like when she would tell me. “If your father really loved you, he would make me stay.” Basically, it was drilled into my head that it was my fault my father didn’t want my mother in his life anymore.
Around that time is when I started throwing up, non-stop for weeks. If I had been taken to the Dr’s, they would have said I needed help probably. But my mother self-diagnosed it as me trying to get attention.
No, I was just so upset I threw up everything. As if I could get rid of the stress I was under, by pushing everything out of my body.
The thought of leaving my father, my home, and everything I knew was quite upsetting. I couldn’t imagine a new life so far away from the only life…
