My birthday: a history

Let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

I have been incredibly blessed to have spectacular birthday parties basically since I was brought onto this planet. All thanks to my mom.

They are so good that my childhood best friends still talk about them. In first grade, we had “Olivia Idol”:

In second grade, we had a beach party at the lake by my house, where I learned what the term “powder room” meant at the age of 7:

In third grade, my mom organized my birthday to be in tandem with the premier of Camp Rock, set up inflatable couches in our living room for everyone to watch, and ordered 30 pairs of white converse for us to decorate. This one I cannot find photo evidence of, but my friend Shayna still has a scar on her neck from an incident with the bedazzler.

In fourth grade, we had iOlivia, to which I forced scripts upon my friends to act like we were on iCarly (the shirt is still in my closet):

The rest of my birthdays are a blur until about 21. My mom got my best friends and I rooms for the night at the Moxy in the East Village, we had dinner at Sauce (RIP) which was, unbeknownst to me at the time, just a stone’s throw from my first apartment, and then galavanted around the city until the wee hours of the night:

The only downside to her incredible, super-human party-planning abilities is that she’s created a birthday monster.

I care a lot about my birthday. I just want it to be really fun and I do not want anything to go wrong, as they have during high school and so on (I’m going to keep this an if you know, you know). I’m a Cancer, so I’m sensitive.

Turning 26 brought up a lot of melancholia for me. For some reason, the number felt incredibly old. Enrolling in insurance was very expensive and daunting. I’m closer to 50 than I am being born, which, for someone who feels mentally 15 at best, is a terrible feeling.

I obviously don’t mean any of this as a slight to my readers above 26, although there’s no way to make it sound like it’s not. It’s just the first birthday I wasn’t head over heels excited for, until it happened.

Around May, I decided that I didn’t want to spend my birthday in the city this year because although the last three have been fabulous, they’ve all been the same. Pregame at my apartment and go to Winnie’s. I don’t see those two events not happening in the next five years of my life, so why not switch it up now.

The best way to have your birthday paid for by your parents after you turn 18 is to have it at their house.

I decided to lean into the suburban, evergreen, backyard vibe that Connecticut provides and called it Camp Olivia. I told my mom I wanted hats and my great-grandmother’s ribs, and that’s all I knew walking into it. My ten-ish best friends from home and school boarded the Metro North to Fairfield and began our 24 hours of camper activity.

What I arrived to was an inflatable couch (a through line in my birthday parties since childhood), a full bar, cocktail tables, a dry-erase beer pong table, custom hats with vintage pins from Etsy to decorate with, grandma’s ribs in the croc pot, and the makings of everything you would need for the best birthday ever.

In the morning, my mom made a coffee/screwdriver/bloody mary bar and my favorite cheesy potatoes. More people decided to sleep over than originally planned which was the metaphorical cherry on top of the perfect, most beautiful cake Gabrielle Scelzo made me, as well my favorite chocolate cake from The Pantry in Fairfield.

When I got back to the city, I got a drink at Hartley’s before having dinner at Sailor in Fort Greene, which I found to be excellent. Suddenly 26 was shaping up to be my best year yet, no matter how chopped and unc I felt.

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This post is free because I didn’t post on Monday because of my birthday Sunday. I’m still giving away a coffee, though.

TODAY’S COFFEE ON COFFEE ORDER GOES TO: NICOLE!

Nicole won but doubled hers and gave it to India. Now is Nicole’s time to shine! Thanks Nicole, love ya!