Learning to Celebrate Myself

Athena Dixon on birthdays

By the time this is published my birthday will have come and gone. I would have spent it on a staycation here in Philadelphia in a hotel room with a whirlpool tub overlooking the city. I would have already opened the birthday gifts I bought for myself, had dinner with friends, and indulged in room service in a pair of new pajamas. I would have popped a bottle of champagne and eaten chocolate while tucked beneath a heavy hotel comforter and smooth cotton sheets. I would have lived my own little slice of heaven while swaying to Olivia Dean and making declarations about how that particular moment in time was a reward for trusting and caring for myself despite any bumps along the road.

This birthday isn’t the first I’ve made a concentrated effort to celebrate myself. In years past, I’ve picked a city and traveled solo or with friends to celebrate another trip around the sun. Memphis. Las Vegas. Baltimore. Columbus. New Orleans times three. Bermuda for next year if all goes to plan. The location may change annually, but the intent is always the same. To remember that I’ve not only survived another year, I’ve thrived. Each birthday is a reminder of this.

Columbus: This is the first year I’m traveling for my birthday. The suite overlooking the city is a gift from the hotel for being a loyal member. I’m at the corner of the building overlooking the city and they’ve laid the table with a bottle of sparkling wine and chocolate-covered strawberries with a card signed by a handful of the staff. This makes me cry. It makes me cry because it’s an act of kindness and care I haven’t afforded myself in the last two years. These employees have shown me softness I haven’t shown myself. This needs to change.

I’ve packed myself into my car and driven two and a half hours to visit my college best friend. Kahlilah has been an anchor for the last year. I’ve driven the miles over too many weekends since I’ve returned to Ohio and she’s held me together. She’s held my hand and danced in sweaty clubs with me. Helped me pick out my first tube of red lipstick and pulled me back to when we were college girls sharing a dorm room and giggling in the window at cute boys walking by. With her I am the me before the heartbreak. The me before life got a little too heavy and my mind turned to survival. I want to be that girl again. I just have to figure out where to start.

Las Vegas: I don’t want to be sad for my birthday. I’m still nursing a broken heart and doing my best to put on a brave face. I can mask most of the time, but it’s getting harder and harder to do. I know that I feel like I’m supposed to be some rom-com version of myself. I’ve done all the moping and crying and now it’s time for me to dance in my kitchen and laugh with my head thrown back. I don’t do that. I curl into myself and try to “fix” what’s wrong with me in order to prove I’m lovable. I can’t quite figure it out and so I just keep curling into myself.

I don’t remember how the conversation arises, but some weeks out from my birthday my friend Neek agrees to take a trip with me. He’s trying to help me bat away the sadness. We fly separately to Las Vegas in mid-December and it’s colder than I expect. I’m not prepared for the weather, but we still take full advantage. We take an elevator to the Eiffel Tower replica at the Paris hotel and beyond the netting meant to keep people from scaling the railing and plummeting down and down, I let icy wind whip the hair around my face and take in the glittering city below. I feel something lift in my chest. It’s a small thing, but it’s a start. I’m not alone. I have a friend and that means someone outside of my blood loves me. And that means that I have worth and until I can feel it myself I can lean into the idea that someone else sees it. This year I’m not thriving. I’ve survived.

Memphis: This year is the start of a tradition. I fly to Tennessee for the first time into Neek’s hometown and he shows me around. He takes me to my first NBA game and high up in the rafters we watch the spectacle on the court below. The lights dim, the bass pounds through the speakers, pyrotechnics flash and heat the air as the home team takes the court. I’ve never seen anything like it. I feel both a part of and lost in the crowd of people cupping their hands around their mouths and creating one uniform voice. It feels like the sounds are all melding together to say “We are alive!” It’s an energy that normally would scare me, too many people and too much chaos, but right now it’s exactly what I need.

I don’t pay attention to who wins the game and I don’t remember filing out of the arena among that same crowd that buoyed me during the four quarters. In fact, years later I will remember nothing other than that singular moment in time because what lingers from it is that same buoyancy I felt at the top of the tower in Las Vegas. Something like freedom and fear reminding me it’s okay to keep on living.

New Orleans #1: The drive between Memphis and New Orleans is about six hours. After the game and a few other highlights of his city like the Stax Museum, Neek and I head even further south. After we arrive, we end up on a riverboat with a live jazz band playing music that puts us right where we are but also back in time. This is the first time I’ve felt decadent in longer than I can remember. I’ve poured my frame into a black body suit and dark jeans and I’ve added wavy bundles of hair into my own so the furious movement of the boat’s paddle wheel ruffles my hair as I lean against the railing and Neek snaps a picture. I don’t look fully happy in the photo, but it’s certainly better than the first year in Las Vegas when the railing, and my life, were surrounded by netting to keep me safe. This year I’m leaning with my back to the open water and the endless night, secure that I’m willing to save myself if anything happens to throw me off course.

New Orleans #2: I’m turning 40, so a group of us are heading to New Orleans for a few days of celebration. There are nine of us, including my baby sister, who travel in the middle of December for a little debauchery. Between a flurry of group chats and coordinated flights there is finally a consensus and everyone is booked. I arrive in New Orleans a day before everyone else, anxious to settle in and prep before the party begins. I’ve spent the weeks leading up to this trip making individual gift bags for each woman attending. I’ve stuffed each full of liquor and hangover cures and personalized shot glasses. It’s kind of like the bachelorette party I never had and I get so into it that we will end up leaving behind unopened bottles of champagne we can’t take back home.

I wander to Bourbon Street, a few blocks from the hotel, and end up at an oyster bar. This is how it begins in each new city I visit. I find a bustle of people and take a solo seat to watch and pat myself on the back for being brave enough to do this. The oyster bar is starting to get a bit too crowded and I’m elbow to elbow at my seat watching men in T-shirts and aprons shuck with skill and slightly bulging arms. I’ve missed the way I feel in New Orleans. Electric like lightning that has been building on a sticky summer night and finally lights up the sky. I sip drinks and pop hush puppies in my mouth, hiding a smile because unlike in Las Vegas and Columbus and all the birthdays before this happiness.

Making my way back to the hotel is a slow stroll. Never mind the throngs of people crowding Bourbon Street and the slip of liquid beneath my feet. I think I want to be a part of this energy—to let it build around me until I carry the hum of it back to the hotel to tuck me in for the night.

Baltimore: It’s corny. There is no other reason I’m standing in the beautifully tiled shower of my favorite hotel with a glass of champagne to my lips and taking selfies. But I feel beautiful in my pink dress and this is the best background in the room. It’s been about ten years since Columbus and I’m kind to myself now. In a few minutes a car will arrive to take me to dinner to celebrate with two friends who’ve braved the cold to come out into the night. There will be more champagne and fried chicken because I love both the high and the low of life. I don’t know it yet, but at the end of dinner the waitress will bring out a slice of cake with a sparkler burning brightly and nearly the entire dining room will erupt into happy birthday. Between the embers I’ll see the faces laughing and singing until the tiny firework extinguishes and the room returns to normal.

I don’t know what my birthdays in the future hold. I may be alone or among friends. I could be rushing through an airport trying to make a flight or riding the rails and looking at the world whip by. What I do know is this. I deserve to be celebrated. Because each day, even on the worst of them, I’ve made the conscious effort to live to the best of my ability. Sometimes it’s glorious. But it’s not always pretty. And sometimes making it through calls for a bit of cake and a little bit of champagne.

Athena Dixon is the author of essay collections The Incredible Shrinking Woman and The Loneliness Files and her work appears in publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, Shenandoah, Grub Street, Narratively, and Lit Hub among others. She is a Consulting Editor for Fourth Genre and the Nonfiction/Hybrid Editor for Split/Lip Press.