Happy birthday to me!

I stared down at the dented Travel Sprirograph box I’d found in the back corner of the final clearance section. The sale sticker was thick with previous discounts. The top one read $1.09.

“Please,” I pleaded, “I’ve always wanted one.”

She grabbed the box from my hands and considered. “If I get you this, it’s your birthday present this year, so don’t bother asking for anything else.”

It was January, and my 6th birthday wasn’t until May. She’d probably forget by then, right? I nodded, and she tossed the Spirograph on the mountain of blouses and books she’d already collected in her cart.

But she didn’t forget in May. Instead, she reminded me of my stupid decision. “I hope you’re happy,” she muttered instead of Happy Birthday, with every indication that she hoped I felt the exact opposite.

Birthdays were always the unhappiest day of the year. A reminder of my very existence, the one my mother would happily extinguish if it wasn’t for her fear of being found out. The day of my birth marked the route of all her suffering. And the constant reminders of how my truest display of love for her would be my ability to drop dead, made the day a dismal celebration despite other’s attempts at cheer. Gifts were always returned to the store, or given away to more “deserving” children, and each birthday ended in a reminder that my succeeding to live another year was evidence of my failure to be a “good” daughter that simply died.

The day I turned ten was the first time she tried to murder me. Feeling forced into throwing me a birthday party by the overly concerned PTA of my very small class, she acquiesced. I bowled with my classmates and ate supermarket cake, managing to keep it down despite my ever-growing queasiness about what punishment lay ahead.

Two stop signs from home, she decided she’d had enough of playing pretend. She leaned over, opened the passenger side door, then with both hands shoved me out of the used Hyundai Excel onto the blacktop. I stood, scraped and dazed, in my birthday outfit I chose the night before. As I gathered myself and made my way to the sidewalk, I heard the screech of car tires coming toward me.

I ran. The Hyundai followed. Through the open window her screams chased me with the promise that she would kill me, fucking kill me, she swore it. I ran faster. The Hyundai took down mailboxes and garbage cans all along the sidewalk. A homeowner protested, and the Hyundai screeched and turned away.

I ran through yards and alleyways, past stores and the familiar streets I biked on daily. I ran to the church behind our rental house and up the crooked tree where the kind reverend once told me it was okay to pick the blackberries that grew along the fence as long as I saved some for others. I stayed in the tree all night mad at myself for being born, but madder at her for being the one I was born to.

Each year after that, my birthday wish was the same. I gave up ideas of unicorn rides or unlimited candy bars. Instead, I wished to stay alive, to maybe even have a good life someday too, if it wasn’t too much to ask.

This year I turned 47. I didn’t have a party. There weren’t any grand gifts, or big plans. But what I did have was more bouquets than I’d ever received before, enough sweets to give me ten cavities, texts, calls, and messages from friends near and far, and a birthday dinner with a family of my own.

Each birthday is a victory. I live, year after year, as challenging as many of those years can be. Some years, the haze of ugly memories casts a shadow on the day that I’m unable to erase, but this year I celebrated the fact that I’m here. I survived another year. And others are happy to celebrate the fact that I’m alive too, that I exist in their lives, as their friend, coworker, partner, and mom. I have people I love and who love me and really, I couldn’t have wished for more.