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If you’re a longtime reader of my blog then you know that I’m not typically a big fan of my birthday. I’ve had this blog for my last four birthdays and have written about my disdain for the day each time (read: 20, 21, 22, 23). There have been two major reasons. First, I would rather be celebrated for something I do than for who I am. Second, the quality of relationship I experience on my birthday is generally very poor.
Recently, however, my views have begun to change.
My Annual Birthday Rant - Each year since I started keeping a blog in 2004 I’ve written a little post about just how much I dislike celebrating my birthday. Okay, I suppose I didn’t have a rant when I turned 20 but that was because I was new to this whole blogging thing. When I turned 21 I was in a bad mood. No one wanted to celebrate my birthday because the Pope had died the day before. What a jerk. A guy only turns 21 once. And it’s not like I wanted to get smashed, but it would have been nice to have to fight off people trying to get me drunk.
This was also when I first outlined my idea of the perfect birthday. “Here’s the bottom line: the perfect birthday would be if my friends were to hang out with me so long as it wasn’t something done for me. Something they would have done anyway and they simply included me in it.” To put it another way, I don’t want to be celebrated. Not for my birthday. This is coming from a person who craves attention and for years was willing to invent any sort of crazy story just to get it for a fleeting moment. I don’t mind receiving attention if I feel like I’ve done something to deserve it. But on the day of my birth the only person doing anything worthy of this sort of attention and celebration was my mom. Send her a gift.
It’s strange how birthdays work, not to mention the passage of time in general. Two years ago I felt older than dirt when I turned twenty. I was leaving my teenage years once and for all, and while it was a day I had looked forward to for a long time I couldn’t help but feel like I was leaving something behind that I was going to miss. Last year I was completely apathetic towards my twenty-first birthday. The fact that I could legally buy alcohol was not as amazing a milestone as everyone had made it out to be. This year I was actually looking forward to today, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe it’s because this could be my last birthday spent in Tallahassee, and I’m looking forward to seeing who shows their appreciation for me and how they do it. I think it’s more likely I’m just going soft as I get older.
Last year at this time I was feeling very old. I was officially leaving my teenage years and was beginning my third decade of life. Now here I sit at 21 years old and I don’t feel nearly as old as I did a year ago. I can’t quite explain it. On top of that, everyone told me that this was supposed to be one of those landmark or milestone birthdays. Whatever. So I can drink. I’ve had alcohol before today. So I’m able to buy alcohol. I’ve legally bought it before, just not here in the U.S. There just isn’t any drama to this day. Just another birthday, just like every other birthday is just another birthday.
[Just to clarify, after writing this I realized that I wrote it for me, not for my readers (not that I have any readers). I guess I could have made it a private entry, but who does that?]
Am I old?
Seriously, am I? I’ve been getting emails and IMs and phone calls and face-to-face comments from people who know that I turn 20 this Saturday that would indicate that I must have one foot in the grave.
