Currently, I am officially 23 years and 1 day old. And so, 2 decades and 3 years ago, I was born… the date happen to be 9 February.
Yes. Birthday.
What does a birthday mean to you? For me, it can be a normal day, with people walking around and wishing you a happy birthday. It can also be a sad day, with people busy with their own stuffs and are too busy to notice that it is your birthday actually.
Birthdays. Almost all of us encounter this day every year. It marks an additional '1' to your age. As you grow older, either you have bigger celebrations, or the celebrations die down.
As the age number gets bigger, you will realise, actually, you don't have many more birthdays to celebrate…
Let me go into history…
When I was young, around 3-4 years old, when my grandma was still around, she would celebrate my lunar birthday with mee sua and eggs. When I went to primary school, we had a habit of giving presents during each others' birthdays. So exciting last time, waiting for presents to appear. I remembered that there's once when my mum bought me a birthday cake. I was in primary 1 I think. And I think, that's the only birthday cake that I ever had…
Over the years, trends change. Ideas change. And I start to hope that, my birthday will end up to be on weekends.
And then, I start to lose my faith and belief for birthdays.
And then, I start to question the need to celebrate birthdays.
Not that I don't like to celebrate birthdays. It's the effect of being deprived of true celebrations after one and a half dozen years.
18 years, 18 years of birthdays, suppressed deep into me. The pressure's great, but I am used to it.
So much so that, I start to not like to celebrate birthdays. Because, I feel, no one really cares. The last celebration was during NS days. We actually went to a restaurant to eat. Just eat. Zhiwei was 10 Feb. I was 9 Feb. Killing 2 birds with 1 stone.
Yes, greetings and such. They are routines. I thank all of you for that. It's nice to know that people do remember and bother to send me a greeting of some sort.
And after losing faith on birthdays, I start to stop thinking about receiving anything from anyone. Lost the belief completely. But then, I do admit that I do have a little bit of anticipation sometimes, but it just proves that it will hurt more than heal.
And when people start to ask me how's my birthday, I will simply tell them the truth. That's my birthday. That's the way it has been, for over almost 20 years.
So actually, what is Feb 9 to me? It's a sad day… A day where I try not to get myself disappointed. A day where I will try to a normal person…