Edited By: Sreenandana Nair
The-You-Tried-Your-Absolute-Best-And-You-Really-Hope-Your-Friend-Understands-How-Much-You-Love-Them-Even-Though-The-Decorations-Are-Not-Great Birthday
It is the middle of exam season. You have two submissions the day after and an exam the next day and a presentation yesterday that you got an extension for and is now tomorrow. It has been the busiest week of your life and it’s only getting busier. Also, it’s your friend’s birthday tomorrow.
You go to the mess for dinner with three of your other friends and the birthday-friend subtly asks what the plan for tonight is. You share a look with the other two, act like you have something prepared and say ‘nothing really’ with a slight smirk. The birthday-friend laughs and looks away and the smirk drops off your faces. After dinner, the birthday-friend has a meeting. The rest of you run to the tuck shop. You find one pink happy birthday banner, one ‘birthday boy’ sash, two cold drinks, two packets of Lays, no tiara. You take it all back to your room, tell your friends to meet in your room at 11:30 pm to start decorating.
It is 11:37. Both of them aren’t here yet. You are calling, calling, calling. They keep saying they are on their way but they are two floors away. You are so angry. Just as you are about to start working on your presentation again, they burst into the room, apologising and immediately performing their assigned tasks of sticking the banner on the wall and bringing the cake from the fridge. The next 18 minutes are chaos. But the room is the beautiful shade of your pink light and the wall looks good enough to take pictures in front of. You go two floors up, bring the birthday friend down, have the customary back-and-forth of ‘Wait, I thought we weren’t doing anything tonight’ and ‘Of course we would, it’s your birthday’. She enters the room at 11:59, you count down to 12, hug her a happy birthday, take pictures of her while she blows out the candles. There is the mutual understanding that everyone is too busy to hang out for too long but no one wants to leave. So you just sit there and talk and laugh. Eat the Lays, sip the Coke, tell the same stories. Near the end of the night, the birthday friend hugs all of you, and you can hear the tears in her voice.
‘I am so happy. This is the best birthday ever.’
You realise you don’t need a huge perfect party. Sometimes, just a birthday boy sash does the trick.
The-It-Is-Your-Hometown-Best-Friend’s-Birthday-And-You-Will-Never-Not-Be-Homesick-Birthday
You are on Facetime with your best friend from back home (and, by extension, all her other friends) at 11:59 pm. Your wifi is bad because it is university wifi and you don’t know how to engage in conversation when everyone is there and you are here. Alone on your bed in your pjs, with three readings open on your laptop. You miss the 3, 2, 1 bit of the countdown because you lost connectivity, and your ‘Happy Birthday!’ comes out more as a scream begging to be heard across all the distance between you and your best friend than a cheery wish. She tries to talk to you but you can’t really hear what she’s saying, and her friends who are actually there keep talking to her, telling things you can’t hear and making jokes you don’t get. You eventually stop trying to talk. You just listen to your best friend exist in all the glory and love of her new life.
The next morning, you wake up. Text your friend happy birthday again. Say love you and miss you and it almost comes out as an apology. You never not feel guilty for leaving home but on some days it is a block in your throat. Something you can learn to ignore, eventually. On days like this, it is a punch in the gut.
You wear a nicer outfit than usual in hopes that you will feel better. You don’t. You go to classes, eat lunch, laugh at the jokes you are supposed to laugh at, and ignore the heaviness in your chest. You try to immerse yourself in the mundanity of your life, in the motions of being a university student. But, at the end of the day, you end up alone in your room. You think about what she must be doing, how she must be celebrating her birthday. You think about the life you have chosen for yourself, you let yourself fear the loss of all those you love back home. You let yourself think about how you and your best friend have whole lives without each other. How you don’t really need each other. How you need her because she is your best friend but she has everything she needs back home. You let yourself hurt, let your mind give in to its worst fears. The dark gaping hole of homesickness envelops you and you stop running. You let it.
Your phone buzzes and it’s a text from her.
‘wish you were here’
‘everyone else is pissing me off’
‘miss u’
‘come back fastttt’
You smile a little. Text her back.
‘have funnn they are all here to celebrate with you dont overthink it, miss u toooo:(( but pls party properly’
‘it’s my birthdayyy no sad face you also don’t overthink it i would have more fun with you’
You smile a little more. As long as you can make each other smile from this far apart while one is at her own birthday party and the other is crying in her bedroom, you make each other’s life better. And that’s all you really need.
The-Birthday-At-University-That-You-Are-Really-Anxious-About-And-You-Hope-It-Will-Go-Well-But-You-Really-Don’t-Think-It-Will Birthday
It’s finally your birthday and you decided that you won’t go home for this year. The more that you think of it, the more that you think that this was a massive and probably uncalled-for leap of faith. Let’s be honest here: you are in your second year. Everyone is much, much busier than they thought they would be. Most of the conversations you have are about how tired you are and how you can’t wait to go home. You barely have the time to go to dinner on some days. You haven’t watched an entire movie in months. Who has the energy to celebrate a birthday? You’re more than an adult now. At some point, you just have to choose to not care about stuff like your birthday. Maybe this is that point.
Yet, you hope against hope. You wear your better outfits, pick out a dress at the back of your mind, ask your friends if they are free to hang out at 12. One has an exam, the other, a meeting that will end at 12:30, another, a paper due that night. They apologise and it seems genuine and it hits you that you are going to be alone on your birthday. You keep it together, smile during dinner, wish them all good luck. Go to your room and let your anxiety take over you. Become convinced of the loneliness and desolation of your existence. Put on your pyjamas and the old YouTube videos of the band you used to love, make yourself chai, dim the lights. You promise yourself you won’t glance at the clock every passing minute but you can’t help it. You still think they will come but the clock hits 11:45 and no one is here yet. You tell yourself it’s okay but it really, really isn’t. You are not a girl. You are a black hole of misery that no one likes to do things with. You are a monster. You are a burden who wants too much out of life. Stop expecting. Stop crying. Stop fucking crying. Stop thinking so much.
It’s 11:53. There is a knock on the door and those three friends barge into the sight of you cooped up on your bed. They are surprised. They are disgusted. They hate you. It’s your birthday, for god’s sake. Why are you cooped up alone in your room? What are you doing with your life?
‘Why aren’t you ready yet?’
You choke up.
‘You guys said you are not free tonight. You have the exam and submission and the meeting and I didn’t want to annoy-’
They can tell you were crying. They keep apologising, keep hugging you, and you can’t stop. They take you as you are. Pick out a dress for you and it’s the one you were thinking of. One does your blush, the other your eyeliner, and you are transformed into the birthday girl in the nick of time. They cover your eyes with their hands, lead you into the most beautiful room with the birthday sash and the tiara and the banner and the mess of scissors and cello tape somewhat concealed under a blanket. Count down to 12. Take photos as you blow out the candles.
You let yourself indulge in the moment. Someone you met a few months ago loves you enough to let cello tape ruin the walls of their room. Someone loves you enough to get up early to order a cake for your birthday in your favourite flower so that you can smile just that much bigger when you cut it. That is what it’s all about. Dying for people is easy. Who will know you well enough to pick out the flavour of Lays you like? You have people for you now. Here. Today. You are happy in this life.