Bad birthday

The day before my 15th birthday something happened that changed the shape of my life - and the shape of me - forever.

It was an event so seismic that the aftershocks rippled on for years and years, leaving me with some major abandonment issues, cunningly disguised in the guise of the kind of cool chick who didn’t want to get tied down in a serious relationship - because if you don’t get tied down you don’t get hurt, right? Wrong. But hey, I had a lot to learn.

Two years after that event, on the day before my 17th birthday, my grandma, who I was very close to, died suddenly from a heart attack.

From then on I dreaded my birthday, convinced each year that something terrible was going to happen and, like those star-gazing types who get hysterical over Mercury going retrograde, it often became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and my birthdays were routinely a bit crappy.

But as the years came and went and began grouping themselves into decades, my fear began to fade and it felt as if the curse had been lifted. 

Until this year. Until this week.

I’d been having a great old time in San Francisco - see last week’s Wonderstruck - but then last Sunday, on the eve of my birthday, I woke up overwhelmed by an incredible feeling of gloom.

It was as if a thick black fog had rolled in from the Bay and seeped its way right inside of me down to my bones.

I felt so tired. And so incredibly sad.

I ought to say at this point that in the weeks leading up to my birthday this year I had a couple of breakthrough conversations with the people who were involved in that seismic event all those years ago. Conversations that finally threw a new light on what had happened. And although they brought closure, I think they also prised the lid off the sorrow I’d been storing deep down inside me for so long.

So, the day before my birthday this week, I barely ventured from my hotel in downtown San Francisco, hoping that if I took it easy for a day I’d shake off my malaise.

I went to bed early and cried myself to sleep.

The next day - my actual birthday - began well. As I’m currently eight hours behind the UK I woke to a flurry of lovely birthday messages from friends and family back home. 

This is good, I thought to myself, as I got showered and dressed. Maybe the fog has lifted.

I decided to take a walk to the Mission District of the city, and treat myself to a birthday brunch and take a tour of all the great street art the neighbourhood is known for.

Off I set with a rousing Spotify playlist in my ears and a spring in my step.

But within ten minutes it was as if I’d strayed onto a movie set - a movie with a title like Zombie Apocalypse or The World’s Worst Acid Trip.

Everywhere I looked I saw people out of their heads on drugs (from the meth and fentanyl stable), many to the point of catatonia. 

There were bodies lying prone across the sidewalk and others sprawled in doorways.

I heard the pounding of a bassline and saw a group of guys gathered around an old style boom-box watching me from the other side of the street.

‘Jesus said that even if your faith is small as a mustard seed nothing will be impossible for you!’ another guy yelled into a megaphone at me.

I kept walking, hoping that it would get better and I would feel safer, but it kept on getting worse.

Now I’ve lived in some rough areas in my time - in London and Liverpool - but never have I ever experienced anything like this.

I’d read about San Francisco’s homeless and drug problems prior to coming here, and I’d already seen signs of it during my stay, but in the other neighbourhoods I’d been to there’d been the hustle and bustle of the commuters and shoppers and tourists also present.

This was the first time I looked around and didn’t see anyone who didn’t appear to be off their head on something.

Over the years and certainly since I’ve been solo travelling, I've perfected the art of what I call the ‘don’t mess with me’ walk, aided by my ‘don’t mess with me’ accouterments - a baseball cap pulled down low, shades and earphones - so I can pretend not to hear anyone if they start hassling me.

the ‘don’t mess with me’ look

So on I marched, staring straight ahead and refusing to engage, but within seconds the fog of gloom from the previous day had returned and was hovering like a black cloud above my head.

This has got to be the worst birthday ever, I thought as yet another guy came staggering towards me, yelling something indecipherable. Not only was it the first birthday I’d ever spent entirely alone but now it looked as if I might not make it out unscathed - or even alive!

My gloom grew as I realised I would have to abort my mission and about-turn rather than keep walking deeper into danger.

So I cut down a side street and turned back in the direction of my hotel.

‘Jesus loves you!’ the man with the megaphone yelled after me and a car cruised by, windows down, guys hanging out, stereo booming.

All of a sudden, I had the overwhelming urge to laugh.

My birthday had unexpectedly turned into the worst kind of fever dream, so spectacularly and surreally awful it was almost good.

At least it isn’t boring, a voice in my head said, and I fought the urge to hysterically giggle. At least you’re not having a crap birthday stuck in your old rut back in the UK.

Then a man wearing a shiny gold suit complete with a pair of wings stuck to the back of his jacket walked past. My fever dream had reached its peak!

Thankfully, I made it back to the safety of my hotel in one piece, stopping off to buy some sandwiches and crisps from Walgreens, plus a greasy banana muffin wrapped in cellophane (the closest I got to a birthday cake!) and I returned to my room, where I stayed for the rest of my birthday.

I watched the Trump trial on CNN. I napped. I cried. I read. I ate my greasy birthday muffin.

Then I cried some more, for the fifteen year old me, whose life was changed forever on her birthday all those years ago. But this time, thanks to the healing conversations I had recently, I didn’t put the lid back on my sorrow. 

In a random hotel room in downtown San Francisco, I finally let it all go.

Until next week,

Siobhan

My new novel, The Stars Are Our Witness, is out now, in paperback, digital and audio. Find out more and order your copy here (and HUGE thanks if you do!)

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