Hate.

Ever since I was a kid I have hated my birthdays.

February is such a beautiful month. When I think of it I imagine beautiful pink flowers and sunlight that embraces you and a sky so clear it makes you feel alive. Feb is such a magical month maybe it seems different  to us because it has less number of days than others but whatsoever I adore this month the most. It is also truly the month when love is in the air.
On some days I wish my birthday didn't come in this month but on some days I also secretly like how my birthday falls in this month.
Many people around me ,mainly some friends of mine, enjoy and await for their birthdays every year very excitedly. It is like a festival to them. They prepare, plan, decide their outfits, cakes and god knows what more. Don't get me wrong I have no problem with them doing this.Because i love all my friends.

When I had turned 1 year old my family celebrated their only daughter's birthday on a very grand level. I was the only child in the family then and everyone had their eyes on me. It was quite a big event .I think so many relatives, friends of my parents came and had fun. I dont have any memories of that day obviously ,so I am unaware of the fun they had. However, there do exist pictures from that day, which I occasionally gaze upon when I find them lying carelessly in drawers.(No relevance of those pictures is symbolic to ignorance I face)

 After then all my birthdays were celebrated at home. I don't remember my 2nd birthday but I clearly remember my 3rd birthday. Growing up birthdays included my mother spending her time cooking in the kitchen for our guests, her buying return gifts for the kids and more more more. My father never participated willingly in anything. But as a kid you don't understand the hidden misogyny that young.
 It is scary how clearly i remember my 3rd birthday. The party had started all my 'friends' which I no longer recogonise had arrived at my home, and what happens normally at a home gathering was happening. I remember looking for my father because he wasn't at home, he wasn't at my party. Time went by and it was time for me to cut my  cake now i clearly dont remember if my father came back home when i was about to cut cake or after i cut my  cake but i was very much hurt by his absence. And that gravely affected the young me's perception about her birthdays.
We celebrated most of my birthdays like this. My mother working, cooking, setting doing everything for my birthday alone while my father did nothing. He never even bothered to pay attention to any aspect that makes a birthday party fruitful. Infact, I would always be taunted by his words which implied that I was a big kid and I shouldn't be organising any parties. I would feel sad and more sadder to see my mother cooking cooking because of me. I hated my birthdays.

Next when I was in 4th grade I got severely sick during my birthday. It was so bad that I couldn't even attend my school picnic which kids later told me was so fun. I couldn't even go to school on my birthday and that somewhere added to the already exisiting hatred I had towards my birthday.

When I was in 5th grade, all my so called 'friends' were invited. They never paid attention to me and I felt so left out I hated it.
Every birthday party would include my father either not being home or even if he was he'd sit in his room, my mother taunting me about how much work she has to do for me and how I am ungrateful and pretentious relatives complaining about me not talking to them.
When covid happened birthday parties stopped and thank god birthdays started to feel lil peaceful but not entirely. I personally don’t like receiving attention or so-called ‘love’ from people who are the cause of my suffering throughout the year, who secretly hate me, or who ignore me entirely. Sudden attention and ‘love’ from such people on my birthday only fills me with pure rage.
When I turned 13 a teen finally, i remember my mother secretly talking about how I am not grown up at all and blah  blah and I was so hurt I cried a lot.
When i turned 14 I had an exam that day. It went horrible. And I convinced myself that my birthdays are the most horrible days of my life.
When i turned 15,that very day my aunt got diagnosed with cancer. I think even you might agree by now that my birthday is a very inauspicious, unfortunate, unhappy and ill-fated day. I was sad that day too.
I have grown up to realize that birthdays are only celebration for a few  for people like me they are a reminder that the world is unkind.

I have kind friends, they try to make me happy on my birthday but their efforts remain futile because through my lens, it is a day that reminds me that love is pretentious, that I am a nuisance, and that it is probably me who is difficult to love.

This birthday too my father has planned a trip for himself and he won’t be there. But now I don’t care, because his absence doesn’t affect me anymore.No one's presence or absence affects me anymore.

But God I hope my birthday is kind to me this year.