How to Party Like a German, and Other Birthday Lessons
I had to learn how to celebrate my birthday. It took 34 years.
My initial reaction to my birthday every year is one of trepidation. I assume it will be disappointing, a hold over from my most formative years in grade school when I wasn’t invited to birthday parties because I did not have friends. Children are extremely aware of how they are being received and it was painfully obvious to me that most girls who came to my birthday parties growing up were there out of obligation. One of my self-historicizing theories is that I’m so committed to friendships as an adult because I know what it’s like not to have friends. I was a lonely child, and every birthday text still hits with a twinge of disbelief.
Birthdays became significantly better in high school, when my group of friends (real friends!) got in the habit of doing a ridiculous surprise for one another every year. The first year we took my friend Kaitlyn to see the national tour of The Phantom of the Opera. It was a surprise, so we told her we were going to see Sweeney Todd, which she definitely did not want to see. Hence, the yearly Sweeney Todd was born. I think we peaked when we put Margie in a blindfold and paid $50 a piece to stand in line for three hours at Denver’s local comic con, Starfest, to meet Sean Astin, who played Sam in Lord of the Rings. When we got to the front of the line, we asked him to sing her Happy Birthday. She recognized his voice and we have a group photo in which a gaggle of fourteen year old girls are on the edge of tears surrounding a jovial midwestern actor who I would later come to know as Rudy.
(When I was a senior at Notre Dame, working in the Film, Television & Theater office as my work-study position, Sean Astin came in to give a guest lecture. He is, of course, an eternal hero at Notre Dame due to his early nineties portrayal of the underdog football player in the eponymous film Rudy. His wife also happens to be from Elkhart, and they were in town. The building was new and he was lost. I was the peon at the reception desk. I walked him to the basement classrooms. As he opened the door and went in, I was on the verge of tears again, for in that moment, I had been his Sam.)
The next level-up of my birthday was when I was teaching high school in the Coachella Valley and my best friend Erin, who was turning 26, had a joint birthday party with me, turning 24. We hosted Our 50th Birthday Party at my apartment. Notably, my friends Jimmy and Jacqui brought their kids, who played, ate a ton of cake, and jumped on my bed the whole evening. At the end of the night their daughter Lucy said she had a stomach ache. Jimmy was poking fun at her and said, “What are you going to do, throw up?” And then she did. All over my bed. Jimmy was stunned. Jacqui was mortified. I was slightly let down that the first person to ever have such a good time at my birthday that they threw up was a five year old.
Birthdays in grad school held the tension of obligation (there’s nine of us in this program!) and trepidation (will they want to come to the bar?).
My 30th birthday was held in Denver the one semester I was back in town teaching. The alcohol was provided by Jesuits and kept me stocked for months after. It is notable because my parents came. I hadn’t been home for my birthday in a decade. We had no idea that fourteen months later my mother would be gone. She wasn’t great at walking, being in the middle of a chemo treatment, so she sat on the couch and I did my best to make sure she was included in the various conversations and jokes flying around my apartment.
On the next year’s birthday, I did a livestream pandemic stand-up and opera show from my basement, which was tough to pull off because my mom kept yelling, unaware that I was on camera. She was mentally checked out and in extreme pain. A week after that birthday we started hospice care.
I turned 32 alone in my Vienna apartment on Easter, five months into a seven month lockdown. Friends coordinated a dead drop of champagne. I drank the whole bottle.
I turned 33 in Berlin, surrounded by friends in a bar next to my apartment.
Last night I was on the phone with my dad sharing how I still get hesitant about my birthday, because a part of me will always be ten years old and desperate to pick out the right party favors so the girls at school will like me. Birthdays carry such an epic weight. They have to be good. I have to have a good time. It’s not like other celebrations, in which I revel at the completion of a project or accomplishment. It’s arbitrary, obligatory joy. They have so much pressure!
I am not very good at acknowledging anyone else’s birthday, either. I don’t think I’ve gotten my dad a present in years. I have an annual panic on September 9th because that's when I remember my brother’s birthday is the next day. I think I have an aversion to celebrating them beyond the perfunctory HBD text because they were such a point of shame for me in the era when they’re supposed to be the most magical, and I have never gotten over it. I don’t know how Facebook notifies you of someone’s birthday. I only recently started putting birthdays in my calendar. If you are a good friend of mine, I have historically undersold your birthday, and I know it. I’m always the last to the group text, with a LOVE YOU DUDE and a quick venmo for coffee. I am ashamed of my birthday and ashamed of how bad I am at celebrating them for others, which has turned into an annual cycle of not feeling worthy on either end. I just sort of wish they wouldn’t happen.
The Germans have many quirks, but one delightful trait is that birthdays are sacred. There is an indulgence about birthdays to a degree I never felt in the US. Often, German employers will give you the day off, and if they don’t, people will take the day off anyway. Birthday parties are planned weeks in advance and held in high regard. “I can’t, I’m going to a birthday party” is a perfectly valid excuse for anything. In my first German language textbooks, every level had a chapter themed “birthday party vocabulary.” Not party vocabulary, but words you will need during a birthday party.
The other tradition about German birthdays is that they are unacknowledged until the actual day. To wish someone a Happy Birthday before the true day of birth is uncouth, because they might die before their birthday and we mustn't tempt fate. (This means very little anticipatory stress.) The invites are sent early, but the party is held on the day or after it. There’s also special emphasis on the actual date. I suggested a weekend dinner this year but a close friend of mine said absolutely not, she is taking me out on a Tuesday because that is my birthday and that is how things are done!
This German reverence for birthdays has helped me to encounter mine with a bit more ease. Instead of the constant nerves and disappointment I associate with my failed attempts at holding parties ages seven through thirteen, a German birthday is a day to sleep in, eat what you want, and take a nice walk. On Tuesday morning, a friend emailed me info for a website update and then texted me immediately after telling me not to open it because it was my birthday and he was so sorry to have bothered me with work. (Could America ever dream of such a thing?)
I’m 34. I’m deep into my fourth year in Europe. I’ve done the obligatory pandemic birthdays, and two birthdays without my mom. I had a successful gathering last year. What I mean to say is, I woke up feeling prepared for April 4th for perhaps the first time in my life.
The first thing I did was go to the store and buy myself a bouquet of flowers. I bought TWO coffees from the morning market and drank them both. I picked up a cupcake on the way home from the practice room. I took a long shower, dressed in every colorful garment I own, met a conductor for a coaching, and then met a few friends for dinner. It was an easy day filled with things that bring me joy. I managed to change the internal question from What if today lets me down? to What if I don’t let myself feel guilty or anxious about anything today?
Birthdays, like any anniversary or holiday, mark a heightened sense of time. But there’s a piece of it that comes with performative expectation. It is this FOMO for a nebulous idea of What Is Birthday that makes me so anxious.
When it comes to birthdays, I want to be a German. I want to enjoy the day, free from obligation and expectation. This year confirmed it: the best birthday gift is to give myself permission for nothing to be remarkable.
Happy Birthday, sweet girl. Your writing moves my heart. I am glad German culture has traditions that offer solace and healing. Celebrate with abandon ❤️❤️❤️