Enga mellom fjella

Birthdays and Boundaries, What a Bonus!

This is a response to "Invalid Entry"  by Moody Blue: Needs an Upgrade for "Follow the Leader"   by mood indigo

So many ways to go with this prompt. Boundaries are external, internal, permanent and ephemeral, impervious and leaky, personal, social, cultural, familial. Boundaries can be healthy and lead to great happiness or become diseased and lead to misery. I could write books about boundaries (so could most of you, I bet!).

Birthdays however are easier to write about.

I abhor them.

It's not the getting older part; we-all get older day-by-day or die and remain the same age forever.

It's the social expectations that I never felt easy with.

I fell out of love with birthdays at the age of 3. My mother remembers that birthday well and the party around the dining room table but still won't tell me what went wrong.

So much for the loving trusting support of family! Not. The secrets surrounding that event have haunted me all my life. By 4 I was no longer interested in birthdays. By 5 or 6 not interested in parties or getting or giving gifts. Birthdays were torture at worse, cake with frosting at best1.

I simply refused to have a party or go to them.

At the age of 22, when I was in Costa Rica, having a nervous breakdown of sorts, the group gave me a surprise party. Oddly, that one was okay.

And a few years ago I invited everyone to my house for a party (on my birthday) and that was okay too.

But even as an adult, birthdays and parties have been a recurring anathema. When the office secretaries I worked with put balloons at my desk one year, I nearly turned around and went out the door. My reaction was visceral. I knew they were being kind and had toned it down (... a lot ... no black balloons) but I was still upset.

So ... I have made it very clear to friends over the years that my birthday is MY day and I will spend it how I choose and usually that means alone and at peace, thank-you-all very much. This is a boundary I have established over the years. It doesn't work as well with family. Last year both my mother and sister managed to call me on my birthday. I think it was the only call they made to me all year (it's a local call for both).

I've mellowed a bit as I've grown older. But I still wish I knew why and how this aversion to birthdays started and resent family for knowing the answers and refusing to share them with me.

K.E.

This is my 13th response for FTL.

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My previous entries:

1. "Crying children"  Circle round in adoration
2. "Gone, fishing"  Old tin bucket
3. "How I behave around different people"  In five part disharmony; also in "Friendship and family" 
4. "Level 28 Blood Elf Hunter"  Letter from Kwn
5. "Hobo stew"  Sopa
6. "She wants to know if I'm lost"  Anemones
7. "Thirteen ways of looking at a blank page"  Counting back from 13
8. "Sarcasm dripping from most of its wonderful crevices"  Me Attitude
X. "And they paved paradise"  ... me very own lead entry ...
9. "This time last year"  March any year
10. "Well whaddya know?"  Well whaddya know?
11. "Bonus (Bones, Bones R Us, Us Bones)"  ... for Shannon's "Bonus".
12. "Easter isn't really about bunnies" 

Kansas: 45º and sunny cool.

3337

Footnotes
1  orange cake with spice frosting or spice cake with orange frosting or any chocolate-chocolate-chocolate combination will do. I accept delivery.