a birthday ritual
My friend Trish is very into birthdays. Many years ago, when I wasn’t particularly bothered with birthdays (“just another day,” I used to think), she corrected me. “Your birthday is the one day where it’s all about you,” I remember her saying. “No one like you has ever existed before, and no one like you will ever exist again. You’re one of a kind. That’s why birthdays are important, and should be celebrated.”
She’s right, of course. And so every year since then, I make sure to celebrate my birthday. I’m not big on parties, but I find other ways to celebrate. Sometimes it’s travel with my family. A few times, it was just a solo trip. And occasionally, it’s not a trip at all. But I try to find something where I can celebrate myself.
Happy birthday, Me. No one like Me has ever existed before, and no one like Me will ever exist again. Way to be one of a kind.
Eleven years ago, as I was thinking about how I wanted to celebrate my forty-sixth birthday, I was stumped. I could’ve had a massage, but honestly, I’ve never been big on massages, so that felt more like how I should spend my birthday, rather than how I wanted to spend my birthday. A manicure and a pedicure didn’t feel right, either. I considered a tattoo, but wasn’t entirely sure.* But then Alex came home from school with a small mehndi, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. And that’s how I found Soniya, of The Original Henna Company, and an annual tradition was born.
Me on my forty-sixth birthday, with my first henna tattoo.
Folks, there is something quite magical about sitting in a beautiful space, with incense burning and soothing music playing, while an angelic soul paints gorgeous designs on your body. Every year since that first experience (with the exception of a couple of COVID lockdown interruptions), I’ve visited Soniya to celebrate my birthday. And now, the ritual has evolved: each year, I tell her my hopes and intentions for the coming year, give her a budget and where I’d like to have her draw her amazing designs, and then I just let her draw whatever she’d like. And every year, I love what she does.
Last week was my birthday. And this year, the phrase that kept coming to me — one you’ve likely heard me say over and over — is kindness is a power move. I told her that I wanted it over my heart, because this coming year, I want to live that concept as fully as possible.
And again, I love how she interpreted it.
Soniya and I last week, on the eve of my fifty-seventh birthday.
So my wish for you this week: that we find a way to celebrate yourself, whether or not it’s your birthday. Because after all: there’s never been anyone like you before, and there never will be again. Way to be one of a kind, friends.
* As I was going through my archives to find that image of my first mehndi, I had forgotten that twelve years ago, when I was considering getting a permanent tattoo, Alex flat forbid me to do it. Ain’t that something? She was 8 then, and she’s 20 now — and has not one, but two permanent tattoos herself! Little hypocrite.
don't forget to mark the milestones.