Birthdays

Birthdays are awkward. Especially your own. To want to celebrate it makes you an attention whore. To ignore it is a depressing hermit feature. Birthdays change so much as you grow up. When you're five you get the cool party hats, princess decorations, and blow horns to commemorate the next year of life. Thirteen brings you to the magical age of teenage-dom (a kingdom that I am now no longer considered a part of) and you still gather your friends for a pool party. Sweet Sixteen is ostentatious to celebrate the fact that you have been given legal access to a dangerous machine. Eighteen is the time that you buy cigarettes just because you can or blow all your birthday money at the casino (Oakes can relate, he's been on a casino kick recently) and then go to the club to see what it's all about. But by the time you've reached the older years, big giant celebrations aren't really on the agenda. At least not for me. 

I started off my twentieth year of life on July 1st at midnight with a phone call from Hannah, and Megan counting down the seconds beside me until I would never be a teenager again. Soon after came a text from Tyler. Who could complain? Well wishes continued all day, but birthdays reveal who your friends are. Some people don't remember. I've learned that some that I consider close friends don't value me in the same way. But that's okay. Because my value doesn't come from facebook wall posts or a birthday tweet from Cady Groves (cross your fingers everyone, she's got three and half hours left). My value was given to me by a God that blessed me enough to give me life twenty years ago, and to sustain it ever since. 

But if you forgot, and you regret it and want to redeem yourself, I wouldn't say no to a promise to buy A Very Lucky Girl a drink for birthday #21 next year.