An Open Letter

Hey, I’m gonna have to be a bit careful to not turn this into a pity party for myself. In about a month it’s going to be my 22nd birthday. Since it’s two days after Thanksgiving this year, it’s over the break – no one will be here for it. My parents want me to come home, but I told them I don’t want to again, as I think I’d rather be alone here, than alone there. They said if I had plans with friends they understood, but I don’t have any of those either. Everyone’s gone for my birthday, and regardless I don’t really expect anyone to do anything.

Last year a few other people and I threw a surprise party for two friends, and it was amazing. Their friends came up and all hid in their apartment, and when they came home they all jumped out and surprised them both. We all gave them presents, and it was a nice night. I will say a part of me died inside there, as I felt such longing for something like that. When I sat down to journal this, I wanted to say how I hope I can have a surprise party before I die. Maybe when I’m older, and if I have a partner or someone like that to organize it and do that for me. But I don’t see that happening for a while now, if ever.

I feel pretty bad because I know several friends who have mentioned their love language is giving gifts, but I know they won’t do anything like that. When I was young my parents wouldn’t let me have any birthday parties or have friends hang out, so I ended up just ‘celebrating’ by myself. At least once my parents even forgot it was my birthday. My dad (who I love) even put the wrong birthday down at the bank, and I had to get that fixed recently.

For my 16th birthday, my parents let me have a birthday party. I invited my friends, and I got some candy and a $20 set of poker chips from Target. At some point, my best friend at the time started crying about something trivial, and the rest of the night was everyone else comforting her, and I ended up getting excluded. I don’t play poker, but I bring those chips with me every time I move, and I am incredibly protective over them.

For my 17th birthday, I asked my dad to drive me to the beach and let me sit in the car alone for an hour. He went and walked on the beach, and I listened to music out loud for the first time, and also just cried.

For my 18th birthday, I was the only person in the freshman dorms, as everyone had gone home for Thanksgiving. My mom told me it wasn’t worth it for me to come down, so I stayed there the entire week. I think I left the dorm a total of twice. I would get out of bed around 6 pm, and go to bed at midnight, finally falling asleep at 2 am. I don’t think I even took a single shower or had a single meal the whole week. I just ate trail mix when the pain got bad enough, and maybe a bag of chips.

For my 19th birthday, I had a close friend and I was able to have my first-ever (and only) sleepover. We watched a movie, ate candy and then I slept on her couch and she went to bed. She got me a pink sash that says “birthday bitch”, and I have it in my box of sentimental objects still. She gave me a little bottle of pills, and inside of each was a small written note. Some were jokes, some were kind words. I have it in my hand right now. I read two of them and tears are starting to come.

For my 20th, I was alone again back at home. I don’t remember if anyone told me Happy Birthday or anything like that. My present to myself was I took a glass bottle and threw it as hard as I could behind the hill by my house. That was my first time littering, and I wanted to do something wrong because I was sick of always being good and feeling so alone.

For my 21st everyone was gone again, but I had a belated birthday party. I spent about $50 of my own money getting stuff like cake, food, snacks and invited friends over. No one brought any presents, and a friend was supposed to wingman me with a girl I had a crush on. He ended up flirting with her and they’re still dating to this day.

My 22nd is coming up soon, and I don’t want it to. I wish I was one of those people who didn’t care about their birthdays, but I can’t help it. I wish I had a party, I wish I had people sing for me or think about me. I wish I had people give me presents so I could keep them for as long as I could, so I had something to remind myself of happy moments. I think for next year I’m going to try to order packages or small presents throughout the year and have them delivered on the 25th so it’s like I’m getting presents. I also want to go on something like Reddit and offer people money to send me something like a postcard, or something like that so I can at least have something this year. I don’t wanna spend it alone and empty like normal.