I don’t know when this thought first occurred to me, but for as long as I can remember I’ve never been especially interested in celebrating my birthday. The day always seemed like something that should be celebrated, but not by me. The celebration belongs to the person who gave me birth.

It feels less like a conclusion I’ve reached than something I’ve always known.

The birthday is a feast day for the mother, not the child. The child is mostly passive in the event: she did the work and bore the risk. I just arrived.

Yet birthdays are relentlessly directed toward the self being honored. That vector seems backwards to me. The day points not forward toward the person who emerged, but back toward the one who made that emergence possible. Toward an origin. Toward a gift that asks only to be remembered.

Merci, maman.

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