Birthday Monster

Unpacking my longtime obsession with celebrating the anniversary of me

May 25, 2026

I was born on May 13, 1994 at “just after midnight,” as my mother would say. Not since then, but for at least the past 10 years of my existence, I’ve made my birthday other people’s problem.

Birthdays were a cause for celebration, I told my 20-something self. Why would I deny myself an opportunity to party with the people I liked and loved, in the city I long dreamed of living? So, at 23, I got into the habit of texting out invites a month in advance, dreaming up dance parties at the bars with the good DJs, worrying about who would or wouldn’t show up, and shopping for outfits that made me feel good , even sexy, in my body.

When I turned 21, I was in Paris. I’d been drinking French wine, European beer, and fruity cocktails since that start of the semester, so the night felt less about my age and more about the end of a shared chapter. Surrounded by study abroad friends, I ate tajine out of a clay pot at a Moroccan restaurant I’d been eyeing for months. We met up with more of our class at a bar, where the girls I thought were too clique-y for me gushed over my presence. I felt special. I couldn’t wait for 22.

When I turned 22, my parents, brother, and grandparents came to Syracuse. It was a few days before graduation. I thought about my high school graduation, how I only had a handful of pictures with my then-boyfriend. I arrived too late to take photos outside with my friends, since my father insisted on dinner out as a family before the ceremony. For 22, we went to a Mexican restaurant in an old church with vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows. My journalism professor recommended it, I don’t know which one, but they all had good taste. Everyone in my family said they enjoyed their meals. On graduation day, I got all of the photos I wanted with my family, my boyfriend, my professors, and friends.

23 was a dance party followed by a late-night diner run with my best childhood friends, who then slept over in my 400-square-foot apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. 24 or 25, I can’t remember which, but I drank too many gin gimlets and ripped a friend’s weed vape and ended up puking all night in the bathroom, Nora rubbing my back and handing me a plastic cup of water. My then-boyfriend, the one from high school, practically dragged me home from the bar as I moaned “I want to die” and he begged me to stop.

For 29, I sobbed to my boyfriend of one year and said he’d ruined my birthday because he wanted to spend the afternoon with his college friend who was in town for the Taylor Swift concert. The next day, we laughed over dinner with my friends. For 30, I booked a private brunch to celebrate the milestone surrounded by my best childhood friends, my best friends from New York City, and my newer circle here in Philly. I felt like I’d arrived.

This year, on the night before 32, I tossed and turned like a child on Christmas Eve. When my alarm went off at 7:15 am and I turned it off, I didn’t feel the mix of anxiety and giddiness I had grown accustomed to on May 13. I felt more like me than I think I ever have, but there was also a familiar ache, a longing for who I thought I’d be by now meeting the truth of lived experience. The ache was all-consuming before. Now I felt it sputtering, idealism on its way out. By now, my best friends from year 30 were traveling for work, lived too far away, or no longer took that role in my life.

It was a Wednesday. I logged onto work and answered emails. I made myself a salad of raspberries, bananas, and tangerines and ate it while standing at the kitchen window with my eyes closed. The fruit tastes more delicious that way. I did a Yoga by Adriene video in my living room while crying. I walked the dog. I noticed who texted me, and who didn’t. I noticed that my mother called and my father texted.

A couple days after my birthday this year, I enjoyed a 9 pm joint on my back patio and titled my head back to see the stars. Suddenly, it came to me, as many things do during this nightly ritual: My birthday reminds me of all the things I’m still afraid of.

I’m scared to let things be. I’m scared that if I focus on myself too much, I’ll become isolated. I’m scared that if I focus less on my friendships, I’ll look up one day to see that I have no kindred souls in my corner. I’m scared to make something and find out it’s hopelessly awful. I’m scared to make something and have it be pretty good, so that the expectations mount and mount and mount until they are insurmountable and I crumble under the weight of expectation. I’m scared to let down the people I love and respect. I’m scared to see the people I love and respect differently now that I’ve experienced them at 10 and 15 and 21 and 27 and 31. And I’m scared that these fears keep me from me, the person who has to exist here and now.

Because when I read back how I’ve just recounted my birthdays past to you, none of them seem like the treatises they felt at the time. They are simply a collection of moments. I injected the meaning.

I suspect I’m getting tired of what I’ve been carrying on my birthday for the last decade or so. A need to prove, a fear of change met with invitations and parties that I begged would prove me wrong. I was desperate to feel like I belonged, so I tried really hard to be what I thought others wanted.

Now, I try to belong mostly to myself and expect less of others. Some would call this being cynical, or jaded. I think of it more like a hug. My try at an embrace of this monstrous life.

A collection of things I enjoyed on my birthday, and on many other days before it.

Special shoutout ♉️

To my May-born Taurus girlies: Lauren, Bianca, and Lindsay. With you, it’s felt like instant ease and understanding.

Routine Breakdown

🥲 Simple steps for making life’s craziness a bit more manageable. 🥲

How to curb your phone addiction without buying a Brick device

Download the free Focus Friend app and use a cute little bean to game-ify staying off your phone.
Put your phone into grayscale mode so your eyeballs and brain get a break from those vibrant, addictive colors on your screen.
Delete apps that you can’t seem to quit. For me, that’s Instagram and TikTok. I download when I need to post, then delete right after. It felt strange at first, but a year in, it feels like freedom.
Commit to a phone-free event once per week. I’m a fan of phone-free walks with the pup. If I’m meeting up with friends for dinner or a party, I set an intention before I leave my house: I’ll only use my phone to get to the location and get home. Otherwise, I’m keeping that thing in my purse.
Put your phone to bed for a nap, and/or the night. Last year, I started leaving my phone in my closet before bed, which I noticed helped me get back into reading for fun and fall asleep more quickly. Now, I put her down for nap in the closet when I want to focus deeply. Knowing I’ll need to stop what I’m doing, stand up, and go retrieve it creates a physical boundary that pushes me away from the instant gratification of a scroll.

Fuck, that’s good

✨ A brief list of media that fed me this month ✨

Heart the Lover, a novel by Lily King | King is one of my favorite writers right now. Her writing is observational but not flowery. Each sentence builds to something that’s greater than the sum of its parts, and she writes about grief in a way that is reverent, not sympathetic.