Obligatory Birthday Post

Not for claps, I just want to get this off my chest

Photo by Bellava G on Unsplash

I turned thirty-one today.

It’s a bit odd to say out loud, but I guess it will always feels odd to change the digits of your age every year.

People get weird about birthdays — myself included. To some, it’s an over-the-top, elaborate celebration. While for others, it’s just another day in the calendar.

Though, as weird as I may get about my birthday, I do get quite sentimental about it too. And not in the sense of celebrating it, but in reflecting on the past year and reminiscing of what’s happened and how much has changed. For me personally, a lot has happened and a lot has changed this past year.

Thirty was a pretty shitty year if I had to put an all-encompassing adjective to it. And that’s not because only bad things happened — good things happened too.

It was a shitty year because despite all of the good things that happened, there was still (and will always will be) one terrible, heart-breaking, earth-shattering, life-changing bad thing that happened which overshadows all of the good and the bad.

My Dad died when I was thirty and that’s something that I’ll hold onto forever.

Despite any other event, that was the event that I’ll forever associate with the age of thirty. And now, thirty-one will be the first of many birthdays where I won’t get a birthday text from him. I won’t get a phone call, I won’t get to see him, I won’t get to do any of the things that were seemingly average with him for the rest of my life. And I cried myself to bed last night as this realization sank deeper into the pit of my stomach.

I was always weird about my birthday.

I never wanted to plan anything. I never wanted to make a big spectacle about it. I never wanted a big party — let alone a party at all. I just wanted it to be a teeny tiny secret, special day with the people I truly cared about.

But, this year, there’s one less person whom I truly care about that will be able to share that secret, special day with me. And I guess that’s why I’m exceptionally sad this year.

I don’t know what to make of thirty-one. I don’t know if it will be a good one or a bad one. I don’t know if my best years are yet to come or if they’ve already passed me by. All I know is that it’ll just suck to have one less person sharing this year with me.