In case it wasn’t obvious by my replies to the birthday wishes I’m receiving today, I’m a bit bummed on my birthday. I don’t particularly feel like celebrating. I’m not allowed to eat cake. Apparently baking two cakes in the past three months means that I have been doing nothing but sitting around, eating cake, and getting fatter from all the sweets I apparently have been consuming.
I got body-shamed by some members of my extended family a week ago. I've been body-shamed my entire life; I've been a chubby child for as long as I can remember. Just never expected to be body-shamed by my own family. I think that's worse than when strangers do it. Who cares what strangers say? I don't know them and don't really care to. But family...
And that was a week before I went out to California to visit my dad and brother for my birthday. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time with them there. My dad made sure this year’s family birthday dinner celebration did not go like last year. Last year, it was just a month and fourteen days after my mom died. During dinners, she and I would always talk and my dad and brother would always talk. They usually talked about politics and me and my mom would normally talk about food--what we would order and then based off the items on the menu, talk about other dishes that came to mind. Last year, Mom wasn’t there. So my dad and brother spent the entire dinner talking about the upcoming election and politics. And I asked them to please change the subject. But they wouldn’t. They insisted I become part of it, to learn to become part of conversations. So I tried and my political views are very different from my dad and brother’s. And they didn’t like it. My dad decided to just stay silent but my brother challenged me. And because I didn’t know how to answer, I wanted to just remove myself from the conversation, a conversation I didn’t want to be part of to begin with. And that apparently opened up the line for my brother to tell me that I can’t shut down in conversations, that I should ask questions. I told him I asked if he and Dad would stop talking about politics just for the remainder of the dinner.
It ended up spiraling out of control and I went to the bathroom and hid out there for the rest of the dinner and just cried, asking why my mom had to leave me with these two idiot, stubborn Indian men.
Thankfully, this year there was no repeat of last year. I had an amazing birthday celebration. I was sung happy birthday twice at the restaurant, much to my dismay. Lol, in the moment it was embarrassing but as I look back on it, it was really nice and made me feel special that night.
But now that the day of is actually here...I feel like I already celebrated my birthday. Anything else would just be overkill. Or potentially a disaster. I was talking to my dad today as I was walking to my car after my evening class. I told him that if they bring out a cake at Saturday’s dinner, I’m walking out. Because it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I have been told I don’t dress myself properly, it’s not fair that I have been told I can’t even enjoy baking, the other thing next to writing that really soothes me because I shouldn’t be making all those sugary sweets that no one wants, and it’s not fair that the assumption has been made that all I do is eat cakes when I have been busting my ass to regulate my schedule, have a better sleeping schedule and basically eat nothing but rabbit food all day, everyday. I don’t want to lose fifty pounds in a month or six months. That’s unhealthy. I want to lose weight healthily, naturally and slowly because you know what, when that fat gets burned off too quickly, all that’s left is saggy skin. And if it’s too much of a drastic weight loss, no amount of toning will tone that saggy skin. Only reconstructive surgery will. And I don’t want that.
I know I’m doing this to myself; being sad over this, being upset because I was body-shamed. I should just let it go but I can’t. And that’s my own fault, I know that. I just thought family would be the one group of people that would just accept the people in their family, that they supposedly love. Especially Hindus, as far as I know of course--I don't mean to add insult to other religions or beliefs. I remembered my parents telling me that the greatest thing about being a Hindu is you don’t need to believe in god and you don’t need to be Indian to be Hindu. What does that mean? Hinduism accepts all. And yet people are not accepting. My family is not accepting. But my mom was. Always.
I found a picture of me, my mom and my brother from way back when. I was a really chubby kid. And I hated how I looked in the picture. But what made it okay was the way that my mom looked down at me in that picture. She didn’t care that her daughter was chubby and pudgy and leering over a delicious cake that she made. She looked down at me with the most adoration and love.
I guess...despite the great celebration I had with my dad and brother, when the day of comes, I just always get sad now. Like last year and like this year. She never forgot my birthday. She was always there for every one. Even when I lived away from her when I moved to Tennessee for two years, she wasn’t there but she made it amazing just by calling. She always called me on my birthday, even if I was in the house with her. And she’s not here to call me.
Plus...on a more comedic note, what’s the fun in celebrating birthdays once you’ve turned 21? Lol. After that, it’s just a reminder you get older. I probably sound so ungrateful right now. I had a great celebration with my dad and brother last weekend. That was enough. I just...I don’t want to do anything more. I’m afraid that anything more will ruin what an amazing time I had this year. I’m afraid that today/tomorrow and Saturday will erase the amazing weekend I had with my dad and brother and next year, I’ll look back on this year and think ‘Goodness, what a sucky birthday.’ And I don’t want that because it wasn’t sucky. I’m just afraid it will be.
Please don’t think I’m ungrateful. I’m so grateful for all the birthday wishes I’ve already gotten today. I want cake but I am going to be better to myself and not indulge. And I really don’t like alcohol no more, save for a yummy cocktail every once in a blue moon ^^ I’m working hard and I know that. Everyone else can go jump up their asses because they don’t care to notice anything outside of their own deluded lives. And by everyone else I mean my extended family here in Vegas. That does not include my grandmother. I never considered extended. She was always immediate because like my mom, she had been there since the day I was born and if there is anyone other than my mom and boyfriend who really get me, outside of my friends, it’s my grandma.
Sorry for this long ass, potentially petulant and childish selfish and ungrateful rant. I’m malicious. Lol. No, I just needed to vent. I think I had it bottled up and not properly spoken. Neither did I really get it out of my system. I think I have now. And I'm gonna get cupcakes because it's my birthday dammit! There should be some kind of cake! Gonna stay positive. And confident. Confidence is key!
I love all my favorite people. You know who you are. Thank you <3
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