On Quarantine Birthdays

I get that there’s much worse happening to much better people right now, but I offer you a small lament: I hate that my birthday is today and I get to see almost no one to celebrate.

I get that the “cool” way to approach your birthday is to “not wanna make a big deal about it” and “just chill with a few friends maybe” but that’s never how I’ve preferred to celebrate.

I grew up in a big family where almost all of us lived in the same town. We’d get together for EVERYBODY’S birthday when I was a kid, whether you were turning 14 or 52. Birthday parties were usually multiple hour celebrations at my grandparents’ house, and we’d barbecue (yes, even for the vegetarians), have a pot luck style dinner with appetizers and homemade salsas, courtesy of my uncles, then open presents in the living room and finish the night with a happy birthday song and cake and ice cream. We did this for uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, brothers and sisters, you name it. It was such a staple of my childhood that I took it for granted everybody did that all the time. Looking back, I wish I’d known better.

In college, birthdays take on a different tone. There’s rarely cake at these celebrations, but everyone pitches in for booze.

If you ask my friends, I’m pretty soft-spoken around new people and don’t usually host large group gatherings, but I attempted to throw some kind of rager every year. It’s the only time of the year where I know everyone who’s invited, and have the joy of watching my very different groups of friends try to navigate each others’ company. As the socially awkward person I am, turning the tables on these interactions brings me joy.

Celebrating in shelter-in-place takes yet another tone. I obviously can’t have people over, and zoom calls, while fun, are not the same to me as other people’s company. I feel more virtually connected to my friends than ever, but I also look forward to the physical companionship the ending of this pandemic will allow.

This isn’t the first birthday that’s been marred by tragedy. I lost my first dog a few days after I turned 14. My grandpa’s funeral was held on my 21st. A global pandemic is an unwelcome escalation, and the phrase “misery loves company” cuts deep when worldly human suffering is at a peak, yet loved ones must remain isolated from each other to preserve their health.

So yes, I admit that among all the things there are to be sad about right now, I’m sad about the timing of my birthday. But I’m grateful for more. I’m grateful for my health, and my family’s health. I’m grateful for people on the front lines, keeping us fed, and healthy, and safe. I’m grateful for people’s cooperation with shelter-in-place, so that we may flatten the curve and keep hospital care adequate for those most in need. And I’m grateful that, even in the limited human interactions I’ve had the past couple months, I’ve seen a compassion I’d forgotten people where capable of. The saint-like patience of grocery store clerks. The respectful distancing of strangers on the sidewalk. The shop owners offering a meaningful “stay safe” with each transaction. It gives me hope that when we get out of this, all of us, we will be better for it. We will remember an empathy our lives outpaced before, and we will fight not for our “normal” to return, but for our new normal to be better, and systematize care for anyone who could need it.

If birthdays are a milestone, at the very least, this one will be a memorable one. And if all we can collectively say about 2020 is that we got through it, together, that will be an accomplishment in its own right.