This Birthday Feels Different

April 1, 1992

It was always a toss up on whether or not people would make extra jokes for my special day or if people would be painfully avoidant of anything that would be perceived as a joke. Nonetheless, I recall much of my youth being perfectly excited about the years going by, counting down each milestone. I'm not sure exactly when that stopped, but at I do know that at some point I stopped expecting to make it to the next year. 

In the most recent years I have felt indifferent at best regarding my birthday. 

 Happy to make it another year, but not feeling the need to make an ordeal of it. Spending time with loved ones has been more than enough to make me happy. This year though, I have wanted people to forget about it. That wish hasn't come with any deep seeded disdain towards the day by any means. I just feel.... nothing..... in regards to it. In fact, I have continuously forgotten about it approaching until my girlfriend or family member brought it up. The day of my birthday, I woke up and went about my usual routine. Not even a thought of what day it was until I called my girlfriend who mentioned a "birthday coffee". I asked "for what?" until it clicked. 

 

Throughout the day I was asked about my plans. It was interesting to see how people assumed I had an innate dislike for my birthday when I told them I didn't have any, that I would be going home, playing video games and calling it a night. Sounds like a lovely night to me. Then, when the matter of my age was brought up, I have no issues with that, i got odd responses regarding how "oh it only gets worse" or "that's nothing, wait until" as if I had some issue with being 34 years old. My response made them uncomfortable, "I didn't expect to live this long, so I am perfectly happy with being in my 30's. Plus, these have been the best years of my life". 

Despite all of this, it was something so much more subtle and unnoticeable to anyone who isn't me that made the day feel different. 

This year, I just wanted to be alone. This year, for the first time, I didn't hear from someone who helped raised me, who claimed I was like the first child they always wanted. My heart has felt a bit broken that, because I put words to my actions, because I can out and said "I am trans", this person who has told me they would always have my back, has abandoned me. This was the first year I have not heard from them for my birthday. And it hurts. 

Everyone had the wrong assumption about my aloof response to the day of my birth. 

Not only was I conditioned by my mother to feel anything but special because she loved to say "you were always a joke!" for my birthday, as if that is a reasonable thing to say to your child born on April 1st; but my uncle who stepped in from my earliest childhood years to help raise me has become a person I don't recognize anymore. He went from someone I could safely confide in to someone I am scared to be my authentic self with. As a reaction to my coming out, he and his wife are no longer texting me, they are not coming to what was going to be our family dinner at sushi for my birthday. Just gone.

And of all the horrible things I have done in my life, none of them have ever warranted getting cold shouldered by him. But acknowledging out loud that I am going to continue on my path of being gender non-conforming did. 

 

And it hurts. 

So, for my birthday I went to work then I got home. I took care of my child and my dogs. My girlfriend made us dinner and I ate while playing Fallout. Then we went to bed. 

I am satisfied with my day. But it definitely felt different than other years and that feels a little heavy.  

 

 

 You put unspoken expectations on this child, without getting to know them, without allowing them to grow. And now you are mad that they are not living up to them. 

Trans people don't hurt families. Uninformed, closed minded and cold hearted people do.