Why does thinking about my birthday make me sad?

I was doing morning pages earlier. From this early morning brain drain writing came today's blog entry. When I wrote that my birthday, December 24th, was only 4 days away, I started feeling those old sad feelings I've always had around my birthday. It came to me that I might want to examine on paper some of my age old beliefs from when I was young. I really want to see if my beliefs then are what they are today. So I did a belief system inventory. Here is what this belief system inventory turned up:

My beliefs about my birthday are:

• people won’t make a big deal no one will remember I won’t get what I want
• It will be trouble for others
• They won’t know how to make a party for me
• I’ll be disappointed
• I’ll feel alone
• Unimportant
• No one will notice it’s my birthday
• No one will care it’s my birthday
• It is MY day
• They won’t make my day a big deal
• They are too busy
• “let’s combine "it" with Xmas”
• Who cares
• I don’t really want anything
• what I really want is too expensive
• they won’t find what I want
• It’ll be too hard for them to find “it”
• they’ll get the wrong thing

I felt bad seeing all these beliefs. I see how needy and insecure I was.

How do I feel about my birthday these days? It's just another day. Now every day is a big deal. I think my birthday, Xmas holidays etc, all of these times just make me sad because I remember my parents and miss them terribly.

A number of years ago I realized every November I started to get depressed. Come January that depression left. Once I realized this pattern I made the decision that I was no longer going to participate in the holidays like I used to. I treat the holidays just like any other day. Every day is a holiday. Every day is a birthday. No big deals anymore. Just one big deal. I'm alive and I'm very happy.

Happy Day!