To me this birthday was not special because I turned 18; sadly, the breeze of responsibility and the fear of adulthood have not crept into my life yet. However, the reason this birthday lingered within me for quite long is because this was that day when I actually felt the time flying.
If I am to leave for my universities abroad next year, this would be my last September in Dhaka.
Last September, October, and all the last. In fact, maybe the last birthday that I ever get to celebrate in my own home with my own people.
For the last two or three years, I had this tradition I followed. I bought cake from my favorite bakery and cut the cake the night before my birthday.
There was always something about waking up the morning of your birthday and having the leftover cake from midnight.
This time though, I could not really stick to that.
I returned from my coaching classes, and my sister came home from her university classes a lot later and jumped straight to her online meetings. Maybe I was physically drained out from fatigue or just mentally drained out; I could not even stay awake till 12.
My body was giving up, and I did not want it to get consumed with all the birthday depression, reflections, and everything. But well, I think I failed at that; here we are talking about life again.
I woke up in the morning, put on the dress I had chosen in my mind, and got a birthday photoshoot done, this time with flowers.
I never bought flower bouquets on my birthday, but for this last time I thought I would.
On my way back from tuition in Dhanmondi, right beside the bakery was that flower shop I always wanted to buy flowers from.
And the occasion could not have been more perfect.
Something so memorable about this birthday would be that on my way back with the flowers and cake, when I was on a rickshaw ride home, I saw a star.
Yes, for the first time in these 18 years of life, I saw a star for the first time. That genuinely felt different; maybe it was a way of the universe greeting me, patting me on my back for coming this far.
After the cake-cutting ceremony with family was over, I was back at the desk, finally opening my social media to see the wishes. I already knew that one friend who would go the extra mile to write such a loving paragraph and greet me at 12 and then end up getting worried about me not responding in time.
Then came all the other wishes of people who have been such important parts of my life at times and still continue to be.
This one day of the year, and also the results day, I see my DMs flooded. It feels lively to see how much you are cared for, but yet so ungrateful.
Then as the day slowly passed, the feeling crept in, the weight of emotions, flashbacks of life, of how grateful I am to God for making me survive all these years of life despite everything.
Well, at the end of the day things do get better, and for every bad thing that happens in life, I get something good in return—a lot better, I would say. And that is when I realize, if I had given up back then, I would not be able to cherish the joys life had offered to me eventually.
I never really understood why some people cry on their birthdays, but now I do.
Suddenly then, a notification from Google Photos pops up: 10 years ago.
And within a while, I have scrolled down to all the previous birthdays till now. Seeing the familiar faces of families, of relatives, of friends, of myself, even how I had grown up. It was almost like a film rolled on, a walk down the memory lane.
I made a vlog with my family of all the five of us cutting the cake together, and I know I will cry the next time I rewatch this video when I am 25 or something (God, I hope I make it till then). I wanted this birthday to feel perfect, to be everything I wanted for one last time, and to me it was.
I would not, however, say that it was something I could make a documentary on, maybe because it was real; it reminded me of everything one last time, of how life with time would eventually change and you would have no control over it.
Labiba Tasnim is currently studying in 12th grade at S.F.X. Greenherald International School.