The Birthday Curse
There’s not enough sage for this shit.
As a child, birthdays used to be magical. Themed decorations, balloons, cake, friends — there was nothing more epic as a kid. Who wouldn’t count down the days, plan outfits, and revel in the one time of year it was completely acceptable to be the center of attention??
But somewhere along the way, that magic… lit on fire.
I suddenly hit a point where if it could go wrong on a milestone birthday, it did. Horribly wrong.
The Shift
For some unknown reason, the Universe has yet to reveal, it started on my 16th birthday. I failed my driving test — bad. Like really bad.
I went to the MVA a couple of days before, excited to have my shiny new driver’s license as a birthday gift to myself. I practiced every day. I was ready. I pulled my car up to the start of the driving course and knew I had this. Until the instructor got in the car.
He was gruff and impatient. Passed his due date with MVA, I’m guessing. Immediately, he barked at me to turn the car off to start the test. My anxiety was ramping up. I turned the car off and back on to demonstrate starting the car. He snipped at me to start driving. While I maneuvered through each phase of the course, he didn’t say a word and kept scribbling notes — no feedback or encouragement. Nothing.
The conclusion was the parallel parking — the bane of any driver’s existence. I had it down to an art form before driving onto the course, so there was hope.
Nervousness swallowed me as I shifted the car into a “parking space” made up of cinder parking block curbs, rebar in cement half-moons to mimic other cars, and a guardrail as the sidewalk (I lived in a small town, what can I say? Lol). I gingerly got to a point where I thought I was in the spot. The instructor opened the passenger door, took one look, closed it sharply, and said, “Not close enough. Try again.” I could feel my breath hitching. I wondered if I even had a chance at passing this test.
Dwelling on that thought, I went to shift into drive to pull back out of the spot, not realizing my right foot was precariously close to the edge of the brake. As I put the car into reverse, my foot slipped off the brake pedal and onto the gas. I screamed as the car lurched backward, swinging the wheel from side to side. We came to a sudden stop. I realized the instructor had torqued hard on the parking brake at the center console. I turned to the instructor and said, “I didn’t pass, did I?” He slightly shook his head, not looking at me, and breathed, “No.” I slowly got out of the car to survey the damage.
I’ll be damned if I didn’t parallel park that car, but… in the process, I had taken out 3 rebar “cars,” jumped the cinder block “curb,” and was inches from the guardrail “sidewalk.” I looked up to see my instructor sitting on the guardrail, shakily smoking a cigarette. To this day, I don’t know how he got out of my car without opening the door.
(So you know, I am laughing hysterically while writing this. I try to find humor wherever I can and the look of that whole scene was straight-up comical. 20/20 hindsight.)
It wasn’t on the exact date of my birthday, so we managed to salvage that day. I brushed it off as best as I could with plans to retest the following weekend. “Little hiccup,” was what I told myself. I still had a birthday, just no license… yet.
But then it happened again. And again. And again. As more milestone birthdays rolled around, I started bracing myself for what might implode this time or the next. And the dread would set in.
Instead of looking forward to birthdays, I tried to find ways of avoiding them.
Milestones of Misery
The irony of milestone birthdays is that they are supposed to be the big ones. The shiny markers of adulthood.
But mine?
- At 18, I had a dinner that made me deathly ill thanks to my dairy allergy. I had no idea it had milk in it.
- For my 21st, the apartment next door caught on fire. We were forced to evacuate while I was in the middle of a bad argument with my roommate (she forgot it was my birthday). I spent that morning in classes and that evening on the curb, waiting to go back inside my apartment while getting ignored by her and her boyfriend. To make it worse, my boyfriend at the time offered to take me out for an evening a few nights later. He was too busy to spend time with me. I have never seen someone ration the money of someone turning 21. He said it was so I “couldn’t drink too much” because he “didn’t want to have to deal with me later.” Needless to say, I dumped him later.
- My 25 was uneventful; I worked. No one celebrated with me afterwards.
- 30 was a tough one. I was pregnant with my son. Very pregnant. I didn’t want to lose another birthday to “the curse,” so I organized a night out in the hopes of salvaging the day. I put an open invite on Facebook and shared it with all 200-some of my “friends.” I figured I would get a small group. Nope. No one showed. Not one person.
- My dad died the year I turned 35. Obviously that birthday was uncomfortable to celebrate with my family still mourning.
- COVID hit the year of my 40th. Enough said there.
- 45, last month, my husband had major surgery. I spent my birthday taking care of him post-op (and despite this, he tried so hard to celebrate with me — he’s the BEST). But, added to being somewhat grounded, no one seemed to remember. My family did, but no one from my unit at work. Two former coworkers did, but otherwise, it was my neighbors next door and some strangers on LinkedIn who were the only messages I got.
It got to the point where I half-joked (but mostly believed) that my birthday was cursed.
The Struggle Behind It
The hardest part to admit… it wasn’t just the bad luck. It was how birthdays started to make me feel. Unimportant. Nothing special. Just there.
Birthdays shine a spotlight on the day you were born. The light you bring to the world. Where you are in life.
For me, it sometimes triggered all the things I wasn’t. The things I thought I’d have figured out by now. Complications of parenthood and marriage. The friendships that hadn’t happened. The expectations I couldn’t quite meet. That amplified the worse the birthday turned out.
So yeah, the external “bad luck” was one thing. But the internal heaviness was worse.
Finding the Silver Lining (As Much As I Can)
As I mentioned, I just turned 45 this past month. The dread was still there, but I’m tried something different this year (and I’m not talking about a cloud of sage or enough salt to de-ice a state.)
Instead of expecting a special day, I lowered the standards a little. I didn’t expect things to work out the way I was hoping, but that didn’t erase what the day is really about: I’m still here. I’m still growing. I’m still learning what it means to be me.
And I get another day on this crazy rock where many did not.
Maybe the curse isn’t a curse at all. Maybe it’s just a reminder that life doesn’t always line up with the Pinterest version you dream your birthday will be — it still has to count for something.
My Two Cents
Do I still secretly believe my birthday is cursed? Yes. Without a doubt — lol!
Am I going to let it stop me from celebrating anyway? I’m going to try not to.
At the end of the day, it’s not about the perfect milestone party. It’s the fact that I made it here — through the storms, the arguments, the disappointments, the years that didn’t look like I thought they would.
And that, curse or no curse, is worth celebrating.
☕ If your birthday has ever gone sideways — or if you secretly dread them too — you’re not alone. Drop your story in the comments. And if you’re new here, thanks for stopping by Too Many Tabs with Wendy. This is where I unpack the messy, human stuff (like cursed birthdays). So grab a coffee or tea and welcome!
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