For most of my life, birthdays felt like something to brace for, not celebrate.

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the day I was born. My third birthday was traumatizing in a way I didn’t have the language for at the time. My 13th birthday was the same day as my closest grandparent’s funeral, a moment that permanently fused joy and grief together in my mind. Most years, I didn’t get presents. And the one actual party I had as a kid? Everything went wrong. I remember leaving it more confused than happy, wondering if I was the problem.

As a kid, you grow up watching birthdays on TV or in movies. There’s always cake, laughter, parents beaming with pride, friends showing up with gifts. You grow up thinking that’s normal. And when it doesn’t happen for you year after year you start to internalize that maybe celebration isn’t meant for you. You become the kid who shrugs it off. You start to believe it’s better not to expect anything at all.

If you asked my therapist, he might say that birthdays represent more than just getting older. They’re emotional checkpoints. For people who grew up with instability, grief, or disappointment, birthdays can feel like pressure cookers: a time when unmet expectations resurface, when old emotional wounds come out of hiding.

And for a long time, I didn’t even feel sad about it. I didn’t feel much at all. It was easier to disconnect. To treat the day with lower expectations than any other day and just move on.

But something shifted this year. I turned 26, and I tried to do something different.

It wasn’t anything huge and it wasn’t even solo. It was a joint birthday with a friend. But for me, it was symbolic. An act of healing. I let people celebrate me, even just a little. I let myself enjoy the moment – not because it was flawless, but because it meant something. It meant I was trying to rewrite the script.

What I’ve come to realize is that birthdays aren’t really about cake or parties or the number of people who show up. They’re about permission. Permission to be acknowledged. To be celebrated. To take up space. And sometimes, that’s the hardest thing to give yourself…especially when your earliest memories tell you not to.

So no, I don’t regret the past. I’m not bitter. But I’m also not pretending like it didn’t shape me. I’m learning to hold both truths at once: that I missed out on something, and that it’s not too late to reclaim it.

My 26th birthday was a step. And I think that’s all healing really is…giving yourself small moments that remind you you’re allowed to feel joy on your birthday, even if it’s taken a while to get there.