At thirty, I threw the most ceremonial birthday party — for one

Until the week before my thirtieth birthday, I was waiting for someone else.

Waiting for who? For a person who would remember the date, plan a surprise, and say, happy birthday, you matter. That's how every birthday in my twenties went. If someone remembered, I was happy for a week. If nobody did, I hid and felt sorry for myself for an evening. The remote control for my happiness was in someone else's hand the whole time.

My thirtieth fell in the busiest autumn I'd had at work. A week out I did the arithmetic: my parents were in another province, my best friend was traveling for work, and my boyfriend and I had just broken up. This round-number birthday was going to go uncelebrated.

So, on some impulse I still can't explain, I decided: if nobody is going to do this for me, I'll do it for myself. And I'd do it extravagantly — serve the me of that day the way you'd serve a guest of honor.

I started preparing three days early. I wrote out an itinerary. I sent myself a confirmation message: Your dedicated birthday concierge is in position. On the day itself I began by sleeping until I woke up. I made myself two plated breakfasts and photographed them, one for the guest and one for the host. I took the day off and went to the expensive art museum I had never let myself visit, and bought the book I'd been circling for half a year. In the afternoon I had a full-body massage. In the evening I booked the best table in the restaurant, a table for one, three courses, half a glass of wine.

The couple at the next table looked at me alone with pity in their eyes. I nearly let the pity get to me. Then the main course came, and I took out a letter I had written in advance and read it aloud to myself. I'd written it two days before, and the title was "To Miss Lin, at Thirty." When I got to the line thanking my twenties for every fall, because each one had scabbed over and the scabs were now armor, I cried and then laughed. The couple stared.

That meal was calm and plentiful. On the way home I understood something: for twenty-nine years the main character of my birthday hadn't been me. It had been whether other people remembered. This year, for the first time, I gave the spotlight back to myself.

The day I spoiled myself like a guest, I learned what self-love means: when the whole world forgets to applaud, you are willing to light a lamp for yourself.

Since then, throwing my own birthday has been a fixture. The second year I signed up for the pottery class I'd always wanted. The third I wrote myself a long letter. The fourth, a partner appeared. He asked how I wanted to spend the day and I said I had plans, but he was welcome to sit in. He came, watched with his mouth open, and then asked, "So I don't need to prepare a surprise?"

I said, "You can. But my happiness isn't staked on what you prepare."

He says that was the sentence that decided him. "A person who can turn an ordinary day into a celebration all by herself — life with her only gets better. It doesn't get worse."

Last year my daughter turned one month old. On the first page of her baby book I wrote a line, my wish as her mother: may you always have someone who cherishes you, and more than that, may you always have the ability to cherish yourself.