(This essay was written last year around my birthday. I think the theory in reposting this essay once again, is that I'll be able to convince myself that perhaps I'm still stuck somewhere in 2007 or even 2005. I am totally fine with not progressing in life, as long as it means I get to stay 21 years old forever.)
I’m becoming a Jehovah’s Witness.
Sure, becoming a Jehovah’s Witness may require door-to-door proselytism, denial of blood transfusions, a subscription to The Watchtower, accepting a patriarchal family structure, avoiding gambling, homosexuality, abortion and patriotism, and believing that the “last days” began in 1914
But the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in birthdays or holidays. And that is a religion I can get behind.
Yesterday was my birthday. I hate birthdays. I hate holidays. I hate any day that requires an adherence to traditions that either half the time don’t make sense, or the other half of the time require – REQUIRE – that one spends the day with friends and/or family. Don’t get me wrong – I certainly love my friends and family. I just don’t like the pressure that obligates me to spend time with my friends and family. Or the pressure I feel every year to come up with a Halloween costume. Or to pretend that I enjoy being single on Valentines Day. Or to figure out whom I’m supposed to kiss on New Years Eve. Or to buy Christmas presents for everyone I know. Or to sacrifice my vegetarianism for Thanksgiving. Or to prove that I’m feeling patriotic on Independence Day. Or to convince everyone that I’m really not Jewish on Yom Kippur.
Birthdays are especially annoying. Not only is there additional pressure to have ‘plans,’ but you are required to inform everyone of these plans. What are you doing for your birthday? What do you want for your birthday? With whom are you going to spend your birthday? How old are you going to be on your birthday? Do you know who else was born on your birthday? Is Gore Vidal aware that there are more people in Cincinnati than the number of times he’s celebrated his birthday?
But just barely.
Why do we treat birthdays as if they are a bigger deal than Columbus discovering America, or Rush Limbaugh discovering OxyContin? The whole idea of ‘celebrating’ the accomplishment of one’s birth is an unusual concept. Every year we celebrate the day in which we were born, as if it required any effort on our part. When I think of the many things I’ve accomplished in my life, I remember that I’ve discovered the cure for breast cancer (well), I’ve won a Pulitzer Prize for my coverage of the Iraq War (not quite), I’ve been nominated to be a Supreme Court Justice (perhaps a stretch), and I’ve graduated from college (now that’s a flat out lie). Despite the many amazing things an individual accomplishes – or pretends to accomplish – during one’s lifetime, the only thing we personally celebrate annually is the act of being born. What’s even more unusual is the fact that we celebrate an event that we don’t even remember. The only thing I remember about my birth is a dark tunnel, some yelling, and wondering if Xanadu would ever become a trilogy, if Reganomics was a Greek delicacy, and why over 80% of top high scores in Pac-Man belong to people whose initials are ‘AAA.’
If you consider how naturally inquisitive most children are, just imagine the questions I had while passing through the birth canal.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with those who celebrate their birthday. What I do have a problem with however is those who feel it is justified – and even appropriate – for a 16 year old girl to spend anywhere from $40,000 to $300,000 on a birthday party. This extravagance is the idea behind the hit MTV reality show, My Super Sweet Sixteen, in which children who experience such incredible life challenges as acne and having to wait 3 days for $3,000 Jimmy Choo shoes to be shipped from New York, are rewarded for the difficult task of, well, being alive.
Thank you Dr. Jonas Salk for developing the first polio vaccine and essentially saving the lives of millions of people. Here’s your, um, brief mention in my history book.
Thank you Katie of Memphis, Tennessee for being born and allowing me to watch your birthday party on My Super Sweet Sixteen. Here’s your $125,000 Hummer.
Oh 16-year-old Katie, don’t get up from the couch. We’ll bring the Hummer to you.
Everyone has a right to celebrate their birthday in almost any way they wish, but it is the obligation of such celebrations that I find frustrating. Aside from my expected Bar Mitzvah when I was a 13-year-old Jewish boy, and then my expected Quinceanera a few years later when I was a 15-year-old Mexican girl, I have very few expectations for my birthday. If I, like many other similar people, require and expect very little for our birthdays, shouldn’t that desire be respected? If some people demand a party and a cake and presents and a hummer and fake-respect for their birthday, then by the same token shouldn’t I be able to demand that I not have a party and not have a cake and not have presents and not have a hummer and maybe real respect for something I’ve actually accomplished that doesn’t involve climbing out of the orifice of another person at the age of 4 minutes old?
When it comes to the topic of birthdays, people generally fall into one of two categories. One, those people who need any reason for a celebration, consequently turning a birthday into the most unnecessary over-the-top, ghastly, event possible. Or two, those who lie to themselves and attempt to cover the fact that they’ve turned 26 years old, by complaining about something as benign and universal as ‘birthdays.’
I hope the Jehovah’s Witnesses accept members who lie to themselves. If so, that is a religion I can get behind.
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