Birthday

Today is my last day of being 18. The last day of my golden year.

What that means, boys and girls, is that tomorrow is my birthday.

You know, birthdays are so funny. Every day of every year a few hundreds of thousands of people are being born. On December 18, 1993, that was me. And that was a life changing experience for a lot of people. My parents, my brother, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles. All of them suddenly had one more mouth to feed, one more card to buy on Christmas, one more child to support for many years to come, one more person to pray for, one more girl that would need protection from the world, one more person to worry about housing when they visit, one more person to want to visit. And that is a normal and beautiful thing. But all the December 18s after that really don't do anything but keep time. Birthdays are just a way to measure our age. When I was younger, I always thought it was so weird that I never felt any different on my birthday. I remember the year I turned 13. I went to my mom's room the night before crying to her because "I'm never going to be a kid again!" I slept in her bed that night. But then the day after, and the next few days, nothing really changed. I had more money and possessions than I did the day before, but that was it. I still went on acting like a child.

Even important birthdays. On this day last year I was bursting out of my clothes from excitement all day. I was about to be an adult. I was going to be able to buy lottery tickets and get into the club without lying to the bouncer and buy things from infomercials. And sure, all that changed. My life is more convenient now that I can do those things that come with turning 18. But really, I wasn't any different on my birthday than I was the day before.

So why do we make such a big deal out of birthdays? Of course, I'm not complaining. I love getting presents and having a whole day to talk about myself without anyone having the right to get annoyed. I love getting all the phone calls and Facebook posts from people who are required to think about me at least once a year. But really, in about 30 hours, when the day will be winding down tomorrow, I will be the exact same person I am right now. I'll just be 19.

Its not birthdays that do anything. Its life experiences. This semester has changed me so much in ways I'm not sure I fully understand yet. I'm more responsible than I have ever been. I still have so much growing up to do in my life, but I've done a lot of it in the past few months, and really in the past year. I'm undergoing that metamorphosis I always talked about last year (see Metamorphosis blog post). The only thing is, last year I thought I was coming to the end of my transformation. But this year its clear that this isn't something that will happen in a few months. I still have some time to go in this cocoon. But that's okay. I have no choice but to wait until the transformation is complete to be a butterfly, and I've accepted that. But my point is that the day of my birth isn't what is going to bring the metamorphosis to its conclusion. A series of events will occur, force me to grow up and find out who I am, and then I'm going to look back and say, "Wow. I've shed the shell." Maybe that day will be April 8. Maybe it will be October 22. And maybe it will be December 18. The point is that I don't know, and I'm not supposed to. Its all part of life.

However, in spite of all this...

MY BIRTHDAY IS TOMORROW OMG I'M SO EXCITED.

xoxo