Content Warning: incurable disease progression, potentially shortened life span, lousy ableist ex boyfriend, Covid-19 pandemic and related chronic illness, very brief comparison of severe physical illnesses in a scientific way (not a subjective/”oppression olympics” way), brief mention of abusive father.

I wrote this piece in late Summer to early Autumn 2025, around my 34th birthday. Now feels like a lovely time to share it, just after my 35th birthday. So much has changed, and yet so much is the same. Perhaps one of the biggest changes: I have more confidence in my writing and have found a group of like-minded writers at Firefly, having joined their Fireside writing group and taken the memoir writing class (where I got such encouraging, loving feedback on the first draft of this piece).

I always get pensive around this time of year. I’m sure it has to do with the Jewish new year and the Pagan new year, the changing of the seasons, and back to school, but most of all, I think it’s because my birthday is at the beginning of October, so the coming of fall has me pondering some of the most eventful birthdays in my past. 

I’ve had several such birthdays in my nearly 34 years:

There’s the time when I was in elementary school and came home to my younger brother sulking because he was jealous of the attention I was receiving because our family was coming over for dessert that evening. He promptly poured laundry detergent all over the stairs to the basement.

In my early 20s, my mom and I started celebrating our birthdays together. On one particularly special occasion, we went to New York and Washington, DC.

More recently, I stayed with my long distance then-boyfriend for a few weeks near the height of the pandemic (but not during lockdown). Despite taking every precaution, I got Covid. I was terrified I would die, or at the very least that my pre-existing neuroimmune disease, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, would progress further and my lifespan would be shortened (as had happened to countless others with ME/CFS. Spoiler: my disease did end up progressing after this bout of Covid). My ablebodied then partner couldn’t have cared less, just doomscrolling on TikTok and whining about his sore throat. And he didn’t even order me a cake.

With the numerous mishaps, illnesses, (and occasional really amazing, but frankly expensive and not possible every day or even every year) experiences I’ve had on my birthdays, it’s not at all surprising that I’m the kind of person who loves to find reasons to celebrate: Mundane reasons. Symbolic reasons. Anniversaries of past achievements. Anniversaries of others’ achievements. Very specific holidays (see National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day, celebrated on 12 November).

Having said all that… I absolutely have dug deep and armchair psychoanalyzed why I’m so keen to find– if not create– opportunities to celebrate:

-Maybe because I’m a Libra sun and Leo moon (fellow astrology girls, gays and theys probably understand the significance– I’m working on being a social butterfly, I love putting together a beautiful aesthetic, and ensuring my favourite people and I have moments to shine is essential to me, but those moments have to come at the right time, for the right reasons). 

-Maybe it’s because many days I get to live so little life– ME/CFS has one of the worst health-related quality of life scores of any disease, even compared to several types of cancer, stroke, and Multiple Sclerosis (Hvidberg et al [2015]).

-Or maybe I’m getting in touch with my inner child more fully, and I want to have fun!

Or maybe I’m trying to make up for my teenage years, when I struggled with severe Major Depressive Disorder. I wasn’t sure I would make it to my 18th birthday.

During those years, finding things to celebrate, no matter how small, gave me a sense of purpose, something to smile about, even if it didn’t make any sense to anyone else. I think I’m still searching for that sense of purpose, both through larger things, like the constant existential question of “WHAT IS MY LEGACY?” and desperately clutching at the minute amount of energy I have for creative projects and community interactions each day, praying I’m using them wisely, while also going the silly, whimsical, childlike route and throwing gotcha day parties for my cat (who is “NOT impressed by the party hat, thank-you-very-much-Rebecca!”), naming plush cats after revolutionaries, and wishing I WERE a cat when life gets particularly stressful.

Also, actual full-blown little celebrations. When life gets tough, the tough revisit their emo roots and have a birthday party for Gerard Way, because spring is supposed to be here but it isn’t so they’re not oh-fucking-kay. (I think that’s how that saying goes?).

Anyway. Here are some more examples of seemingly silly things I’ve celebrated or plan on celebrating, to my great pleasure.

One wintery afternoon in high school, I made cupcakes for Finnish Independence Day. Very traditional Finnish food. Despite some of my ancestors being northern European, as far as I know, I don’t have any Finnish heritage (I did just learn the other day that one of my ancestors was born in Prussia, so who knows?) I think the language is beautiful and enjoy Tove Janssen’s Moomin stories and HIM and Tarja’s music and salted licorice, so my 14 year-old self said hei, why not celebrate the place they all come from?

Being estranged from my abusive father for about a decade, June has started to feel like an unending migraine and a parade of happy people with their doting dads celebrating their birthdays and Father’s Day every single day of the week.

When I came out as nonbinary a few years ago, I realized June didn’t have to be that way anymore; I could celebrate myself instead, as the person reparenting myself, the daddy I’d had for longer than this man who’d been a great dad for 7 years and then turned into a monster I didn’t recognize. 

Now it’s all punny dad jokes, walking through the card aisle at Dollarama and laughing to my mom “I should get this for myself!” while pointing to a mug that says “#1 Dad” and feeling very affirmed in my gender as a nonbinary femme, and yes, occasionally crying when I see other people with incredible fathers and me with my absent, sorry excuse for one.

On the topic of hot queers without dads (why does that sound like a really bad x-rated show?). Sometimes it’s nice to celebrate Golden Age Hollywood stars’ birthdays. Watch a classic film or two, have a dessert (perhaps their favourite?) or a fancy cocktail or mocktail. Montgomery Clift was a bicon, early method actor, and tragic heartthrob (and a Libra sun like me, astrology girls, gays, and theys!). Marilyn Monroe, blonde bombshell, slightly later method actor, friend of Monty (ooh! new nickname for bi people just unlocked!) and little-known Endometriosis warrior. Honestly, did anyone in Hollywood in that time period have a dad who was there all the time AND identify as monosexual (not that that term existed then, but you know)?!

I’ve been a cane user for 10 years and look forward to celebrating that with a new, sparkly cane and some cake. Because why not?

My girlfriend has planned a week and a half for us to spend together starting on my birthday that she’s named “Beccatoberfest” and as I write this I can feel all the hurt and anger and terror of that horrible Covid birthday leaving my body.

As September draws to a close and my time being 33 does too, I’m looking to the future and thinking of all the things I can celebrate, big and small.

I can’t imagine a more healing celebration than that.