The Big 21
Every year, I throw a birthday tantrum. When I was turning 4 in India I started crying when my friends wouldn't call me "Dum-Dum" when they sang me the birthday song because my grandfather used to call me Dum-Dum and so that's what I wanted. When I turned 13 and my friends didn't decorate my locker at school the way I wanted it on the day I wanted it (my birthday fell on the weekend that year), I wrote an angsty piece about it and published it in the high school's literary magazine because the episode made me lose my faith in humanity a little bit. Not all years are this dramatic; sometimes I would just curl up in my closet and cry on a birth-morning because there was no way the evening could live up to my expectations. This year's annual hissy fit wasn't that different. I think what freaks me out every year is that I feel like a celebration that is supposed to be for one's entire existence can never be as magical, spontaneous, surprising, and u...