It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to

How I stopped hating my birthday: A reflection on mortality.

There are two types of people in the world: those who celebrate birthdays with much gusto and fanfare (I’m talking about you, Leos) and those who’d rather let the day quietly pass.

But no matter which camp you fall into, there’s no escaping this truth: every birthday is a quiet confrontation with death—a reckoning with time that forces us to see we are both living and dying. It’s a chance to confront impermanence, reflect on the lives we’ve lived, and choose how we want to live in the time we have left.

For me, birthdays have oscillated between both ends of the spectrum. Growing up, birthdays were pure magic in our house. With three back-to-back celebrations—my two mothers’ on December 3 and 4, and mine on December 6—it was more than just a day; it was an entire week filled with presents, cake, and laughter echoing through the house. Those December birthdays felt like a shared tradition and a point of connection between us. It was always a time to revel in each other’s company and make memories together.

My third birthday party

But everything changed after one of my moms died when I was 20. What had been a season of joy turned bittersweet at best, and often fraught with anxiety. As the first week of December approached each year, I felt the weight of anticipatory grief, knowing that my mother’s absence would be palpable. My birthday, and hers, became a stark reminder of the void she left behind. Those celebrations, once so full of light, now carried a hollow ache that I couldn’t escape.

Before she died, we’d already been planning my 21st birthday party for months. It was supposed to be a milestone we celebrated together, a cultural rite of passage into adulthood. My mom loved hosting, connecting, and gathering people—she had a big heart and was always of the “more the merrier” mindset. That love of bringing people together is something I inherited from her. She was thrilled to help me plan the party, which, by our standards, was going to be over-the-top. Looking back, I realize that’s probably because she wasn’t sure whether or not she’d still be alive for the party, and she wanted to give me the world while she still could.

I, on the other hand, had no idea she wouldn’t make it to my birthday. If I had known, I wouldn’t have been planning a party—I would have been at home by her bedside, savoring every last moment with her.

Together, we picked the venue, finalized the guest list, and found the perfect outfit: a simple one-shoulder black dress paired with what I now see as the ugliest thing I’ve ever purchased:

zebra-print, pony-hair platform boots. I couldn’t wait to wear them. But my mom died just under two months before the party, and that milestone—one we had so carefully planned—never happened. Instead, I wore those zebra-print shoes to her funeral as a small, defiant nod to the spirit of fun and whimsy she brought into my life. The dress still hangs in my closet, even though it’s never been worn. For years, I couldn’t even look at it without feeling a deep, painful ache, but somehow I also couldn’t let it go. And I’m glad I held onto it. This Summer, on the morning my fiancé proposed (unbeknownst to me at the time), I woke up to find the dress lying on the floor of my closet. Nothing had been touched; nothing else was out of place—just the dress. It felt like a wink and a nod from my mom, her way of saying she was there, excited, and ready for me to have the big party I never got for my 21st.

Looking back, I realize that the reason birthdays became so painful for me wasn’t just the grief of losing her—it was also the feeling of being stuck. At times, I’ve felt like that 20-year-old girl, frozen in time, standing on the brink of adulthood but unable to step fully into it without her. I’ve long carried the weight of the passage into adulthood that was interrupted, that never really happened.

This week, celebrating my birthday quietly and joyfully, I reflected on what birthdays have meant in my life—and how honoring our day of birth can become a form of death contemplation; a reminder how lucky we are to be alive. While birthdays often bring up a lot of feelings about what is missing in our lives or what we don’t have, they can also become opportunities to celebrate everything we do have, and how far we’ve come.

The birthday blues

We all have our own unique relationship to our day of birth.

We’re taught that birthdays are supposed to be purely happy events, yet they can amplify difficult emotions—loneliness, grief, or anxiety about aging and unmet expectations. Psychologists call this the "birthday blues," a phenomenon where feelings of inadequacy or loss spike around the occasion.

Whatever yours might be (joyful or dreadful, or something in between), birthdays are an important (and unavoidable) marker of the passage of time, the loss of youth, the movement towards old age and death, and the reminder that we were born in the first place and that, right now, we are alive. How we choose to see them is a matter of perspective, but it’s no surprise they’ve become loaded with expectations.

In an age of social media, where perfectly curated celebrations dominate our feeds, birthdays are no longer just personal milestones—they’re public performances.

For many of us, birthdays have become yet another societal pressure to measure time and achievement. Milestone birthdays, especially—turning 18, 21, 30, 50, and so on—can feel particularly heavy. They force us to compare and reflect on where we are in life, what we’ve achieved, and what we’ve lost. This duality—the joy of marking another year alongside the pressure to reflect on life’s progress (or lack thereof)—has made birthdays paradoxical occasions, capable of stirring both celebration and disappointment.

For women, birthdays often come with an additional layer of pressure. The ticking of the biological clock makes every year feel heavier, especially when milestone birthdays like 30 and 40 roll around. Who can forget the episode of Friends where Rachel turns 30 and realizes she’s already “two years behind schedule”? Whatever our personal source of inadequacy—whether it’s the baby we haven’t had or the business we haven’t launched—every birthday can feel like a glaring reminder of where we “should” be in life, and how far we might feel from that imagined ideal.

Perhaps a larger (and more subconscious) reason birthdays feel so loaded is that they bring to the surface something we often avoid: the inevitability of growing older, and eventually, our own mortality.

Reimagining birthdays as rituals of reflection

After spending years dreading my birthday, my perspective has shifted. In those first few birthdays without my mom, I started to realize something I hadn’t fully grasped before: that every birthday is an invitation to honor not just the life we’ve lived, but the inevitability of life’s end. Becoming a death doula taught me to see birthdays differently. They’re no longer just markers of time or opportunities for celebration; they’re a chance to pause, reflect on the year that’s passed and honor the impermanence of it all. In a world that rushes us from one goal and achievement to the next, my birthday has become a reminder to slow down and celebrate simply being alive.

This year, I’ve embraced a new tradition—taking a trip to New York City for a Broadway show with family. I highly recommend Death Becomes Her if you’re looking for something fun and silly. But birthdays don’t have to be extravagant to be meaningful. Really, I think it’s about giving yourself permission to enjoy doing something you love, which could be as simple as a walk in nature or sharing a meal with a dear friend. What matters is taking a moment to acknowledge the passage of time, the fact that you're alive (!) and the connections that make life worth living.

I’d love to hear from you. How do you approach birthdays—your own or those of loved ones, present or absent? Do you have rituals that help you honor the day, or do you find the idea of celebrating overwhelming? If birthdays bring anxiety or sadness, consider this: they can be an opportunity to reflect on mortality and choose how you really want to live, on the day of your birth and in the year ahead.