Hi People!!!!!
Can you tell this is the first newsletter from a newly 23 year old author? People always ask if you feel any older or any different on your birthday, and usually my answer would be no... but this year I kind of do? Maybe it’s because I’ve had a lot more time to reflect this year or maybe it’s just the nature of very very slowly becoming an adult. I’m sure I’ll be back to feeling like a twelve year old in no time. For this week’s newsletter, I wanted to take a trip down memory lane through the lens of a very specific article of clothing. I’ll be honest, the resulting essay was very different from where I thought this was go, but it was also a little bit cathartic. I hope you enjoy!
An ode to the Birthday Shirt
It comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I absolutely love my birthday. Naturally about 50% of that love is just about having a reason to get dressed up, and if you were around for my 19th, 20th, or 21st birthday, you know that outfit always involved the legendary Birthday Shirt. Throughout college I was basically looking for any opportunity to wear something covered in sequins, and the Birthday Shirt was no exception. Calling it a shirt is actually quite generous. It is the smallest possible piece of fabric that would cover my boobs, covered in pink sequins and dangling from four criss-crossed pieces of metallic dental floss. Yes, even I, lover of the resort grandpa look, had a club girl phase. But more than that I love rituals, both for emotional and “practical” reasons. My sister makes pizza every year for Christmas (she has done this exactly twice, but I’m determined to keep it going), and I listen to Taylor Swift’s first three albums in succession anytime I drive from Shreveport to Dallas or vice versa so that I don’t crash and die. Until I was probably sixteen years old, I rigorously studied the safety card every time I flew, even though I practically had them memorized by age eight. Still, I’ll never betray my in-flight order of ginger ale and cookies. I’m not sure if this is a manifestation of some sort of OCD, but I doubt it considering how terrible I am at following any sort of daily routine.
The Birthday Shirt was by far the most joyful of these largely mundane rituals. On my 19th birthday, I had just rushed a sorority and was embarking on my first mixer season—a three month long period in which you attend a different fraternity party five nights a week (I do not know how I am still alive). I had only met a few girls in my new sorority so far, most of whom were down with the flu, but my future big Hannah set up a dinner with her friends before whichever fraternity party we were to attend that night. I was nervous. And bummed out that I wasn’t celebrating my birthday with people I even really knew. But I put on that sparkly pink monstrosity and by damn it was party time!!!!!!!! Even though I knew almost no one there, I felt strangely embraced by the environment in that unique drunken frat party way. I got pulled up on a stage and “married” to a random pledge the older boys wanted to embarrass, and I felt like I met a million new people, all of whom LOVED me and wanted to celebrate my birthday as extravagantly as this gift from God deserved. At least that’s how it felt to me after quite a few Jell-O shots.
One year later and I had a great group of girlfriends to celebrate with and yet another fraternity mixer to attend. My friends told me to pack a bag, and they drove me around in circles blindfolded before pulling up to a hotel right off SMU’s campus. The room was decorated with balloons and streamers, and all of our friends were coming to take a million photos and too many shots. Once again, I pulled out the Birthday Shirt to feel festive and fun for the special occasion, probably trying to recreate the moments of euphoria from that wild night the year before. Though I cringe at this outfit now, it was definitely not out of character for how I dressed at the time, and it was two for two on perfectly wonderful birthdays that made me feel like the most important person to ever walk the earth.
As you might have guessed, all these drunken evenings are leading up to the grand crescendo of my 21st birthday when all of these activities actually became legal. And because this was an extra special birthday, I obviously could not go without the Birthday Shirt. My parents came to town and decorated my apartment. We had a big dinner with gigantic margaritas followed by a party with a hazardous number of people packed into my kitchen. Then we headed out to our favorite bar, Knox Street Pub (RIP), where I once again consumed a disgusting amount of alcoholic Jell-O while dancing my ass off to every song, drenching my pink sequins in sweat that I’m sure wreaked of tequila. This iteration of the Birthday Shirt is definitely the closest to something I’d still wear today. With a brocade Maje skort that I still wear all the time, my go-to red bag, and a pair of contrasting blue hoops, it certainly feels more intentional and stylish than the black denim I paired it with in the years before.
But what happens when you outgrow a ritual of your own making? Literally not one other person on the planet cares in the slightest what shirt I wear on my birthday. Or what I listen to on car rides alone. But suddenly the fact that I reallyyyyyyy liked Folklore a lot more than any of Taylor Swift’s other music from the past ten years made me question my comfortable rules for myself. And that made me feel weirdly guilty, just as I did when started to question the Birthday Shirt. I realize that the anxiety I feel at changing one of my little routines is probably tied to a desire for control, which makes sense for a car ride where I’m trying to create an illusion of safety, but what on earth am I trying to control with the Christmas dinner menu or a birthday outfit choice?
Part of the Birthday Shirt’s allure, I suppose, is the pronouncement it seems to make. At least in my peer group, a pink sequin crop top signals a ~Special Occasion~ and therefore a reason to be treated with adoration for the duration of the outfit. While I do believe the theme of my ritual obsession runs deeper, the surface purpose of this one is simply my desire to be the center of attention. (This might have been the root of much of my style from ages 18 to 21 now that I think about it...) But when I tried on the Birthday Shirt for my 22nd birthday last year, it just didn’t feel the same. It wasn’t that I no longer wanted to be the center of attention. No, that much will probably never change, but when I looked at myself in the mirror I felt like I was dressed in a Maddy Paul costume. I was in a vastly different headspace than I was in the Birthday Shirt’s prime. I graduated from college a year earlier than all of my peers, putting me in an uncomfortable half-in, half-out position. I was still partaking in all the same activities on the weekends, but I was feeling less connected to my friends than ever before. And maybe this tension was what made the Birthday Shirt’s air of exuberant celebration just feel immature and outdated. Or perhaps equally likely, it just wasn’t really my style anymore.
Still, I was conflicted. Do I continue the Birthday Shirt tradition for legacy’s stake? What could I wear instead that would feel equally exciting and special for my birthday? That question obviously resulted in a trip to the mall wherein I purchased an embroidered lace crop top from Free People that didn’t even last a year before I edited it out of my wardrobe. I paired it with a cheetah print skirt, and it was... fine. I certainly wasn’t excited about the outfit, but it didn’t feel as forced as the Birthday Shirt had. I probably would’ve been much better off just wearing something I already owned and loved instead of trying to find something “special.” All of this to say that, of course, it was still a wonderful night. My friend Chloe arranged a bar crawl complete with matching lanyards mapping out the spots we aimed to hit. That year, however, my dad was hilariously the drunkest girl at the party instead of me, and I still felt that same sense of belonging as I had each year before. Apparently it is possible to have a narcissist’s dream of a birthday without the Birthday Shirt. Who knew?
Flash forward to this year, I pretty much knew I would not be wearing the Birthday Shirt, and yet I STILL put it on. Mostly just to see how it would feel. Or if I would want to make it work with some of the items that have become go-tos for me in the last couple of years. (But mostly for the purpose of writing this newsletter.) As I expected, I felt a little ridiculous. It wasn’t that my birthday was a much more low key affair because of COVID (as my final outfit choice will demonstrate); it was that I realized the freaking shirt wasn’t what made those nights out with my friends so special. They were never making me the star of the show because of a damn tank top. (DUH!) They did it because they are really really good friends, and they know me well enough to know that I need to feel like a newborn baby Jesus on my birthday. So I took off the Birthday Shirt and put on a still slightly obnoxious ensemble to match my Dolly Parton party cups because it was exactly what I felt like wearing, not what I thought I needed to wear to cling on to my college days or to recreate the carefree joy of those nights. I guess my new birthday ritual will be putting on the Birthday Shirt, cocking my head to the left to study my reflection, and evaluating the progress I’ve made in the past year. Then I’ll take it off and replace it with a version of festivity that matches the present moment, not one I’m trying to hold on to past its prime, because I know that those feelings don’t live in a specific timeframe or article of clothing. There’s potential to find them in every outfit and every day.
10 things 22 taught me
Working from home is fun in theory but significantly less fun in practice for extroverts like myself.
Puppies are cute, but you should be prepared to part with your couch.
Sometimes you just have to let other people work their own shit out. It’ll work out if it’s supposed to work out.
Sometimes (most of the time) life lessons are tremendously corny.
Your birth control might be making you crazy.
There will never be a perfect time to make that leap or try that new thing (like writing a newsletter!), so you might as well go for it.
Kitchens are still the best place to store shoes.
Living at home after college is not the end of the world.
It’s okay to let go of the habits/routines/rituals that no longer serve you.
It’s okay for some moments to just be memories, especially if the people you made them with are still around to make more.
Question of the week
I feel like I’ve already talked a lot in this newsletter, so I’m going to save your questions for next week. I do have one for you though! Are you a birthday attention whore like me? Or do you like to stay under the radar? Please feel free to share any birthday feelings/thoughts/memories in the comments.
Recs of the week
Watch Pretend It’s A City on Netflix. I have not finished it yet, but I was obsessed with Fran Leibovitz within the first five minutes.
Follow @parisiensinparis for everyday Paris street style. This is the pandemic alternative to my favorite travel activity—people watching.
Just go to bed early. You know it will make everything else easier. (This one is mostly to myself.)
I can’t remember if I’ve recommended this already or not, but it’s worth repeating: subscribe to Busy Phillips’s podcast. My only complaint is that they only release one episode per week.
Thank you for sticking with me through this doozy of a newsletter. I hope at least some of you found this relatable! Feel free to hit me up with any questions or comments or concerns. As always I am desperate for human interaction. Enjoy the rest of your week, byeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!
Cheers,
Maddy
I always loved being the center of attention on my birthday. When I was younger one of my favourite days of the year was the day I handed out my birthday invitation to my friends. On my 16th birthday we had a dance of our after school club and my friends brought me gifts and a crown I was supposed to wear. So everyone asked me whether it was my birthday and I felt so special. :)