Old photos with cake smeared across my tiny mouth smiling ear to ear prove I must have loved my birthday once, I must have. I’m afraid I’ve started shrugging when people ask if I’m excited for my birthday. Then again, receiving attention is not my strong suit; I’m the kind of person who receives a compliment by physically recoiling and covering my face, a reaction I’ve learned with age. My new aversion to attention makes me feel sorry for my younger self who used to proudly wear her own frosting, how disappointed she would be to know that the big day in mid-March has become one I decidedly ignore until someone forces me not to. Recently I embarked on a mission to understand why and as it turns out, I’m not alone.

Days before my sister’s twenty-third birthday I asked, “Are you excited?” She sighed, “No, not really.” She went on to explain the feelings of distress her birthday has caused, especially in recent years. In her words, “I am not the kind of person birthdays are made for.” It made sense to me, perhaps more than the blind celebrations and the excitement to simply age another year. I wondered if our shared feelings manifested in our youth. The two of us a mere two years apart aged like a syncopated rhythm, her experiences always happening just before mine.

I began to consider the other family, friends, and teachers I’d encountered who shuttered at the thought of their own big day, who cringed when “Happy Birthday To You” inevitably rang out. Some friends of mine annually felt increased feelings of depression around their birthdays, exhibiting behaviors similar to a depressive episode. But why? Why does a day that is meant to produce feelings of contentment and joy leave so many just trying to cope until it’s passed?

For me, it must have started in childhood. My birthday always seemed to belong to others. Even in elementary school, my birthday was about having enough cupcakes for everyone in my homeroom. When middle school came around, it seemed like every kid at my school was in a parent-sponsored competition. Strange themes with stranger-looking cakes haunt my memories. One of my sister’s closest friends had a Hunger Games-themed birthday, and my own sister’s party was Les Miserables-themed, I’m not sure which is more concerning.

In high school, people would create elaborate social media posts for one another, carry around large number-shaped balloons for whatever age they were turning, and gossip about who was and wasn’t invited—it all felt so performative and my view shifted. A birthday became another contest, another chance to prove oneself. I now realize these birthdays were my introduction to being the center of attention, a feeling I’ve never become acquainted with.

Birthdays shove us into a spotlight we never really ask for, to the point of it feeling undeserved. While a small part of me loved the feeling of my classmates singing Happy Birthday or my family taking me out to dinner, another part kept asking myself “Why?” All the ones that seemed to matter quickly came and went. When I turned 16, I was more worried about who might be upset I didn’t invite them out to dinner than the day itself. 18 came when I was in quarantine.

As 21 approaches, I find myself more overwhelmed than excited. As an adult, I am suddenly forced to confront the growing number which has become so much a part of my identity. It’s the label I never asked for, the one I can’t control. I imagine myself ten years ago and the memories feel too far out of reach, clouded by high school and college and I wonder when all this will feel the same.

I reached out to some other college-aged friends to see how their birthdays affect them, and I’ve found I’m not as alone as I thought. As it turns out, quite a few of them share my aversion for attention and, as one anonymous interviewee said, “hate the feeling of being celebrated.” The solution? Let’s give our birthdays back to ourselves. A solo-movie night fulfills some in the way a surprise, 30-person bash does others. Whatever it is we need to do to get through a day society puts so much pressure on us, whether we love it or deeply resent it, is enough.