Maybe It’s Not All Bad
Life will never turn out as you plan it to.
Today was my 21st birthday. But instead of spending it with friends, or going on a long road trip to explore, I spent it at home, essentially alone.
There are a ton of better ways to spend my 21st birthday. And it didn’t help that I had a history with birthday parties.
I’ve always had a love hate relationship with my birthday. On one hand, it’s a nice time to celebrate, and I can always rely on gifts and food from my friends and family.
But for the last few years, I struggled a lot with insecurity, and one of my biggest insecurities was seeing other people get a ton of birthday wishes on their birthdays. I would look at the Instagram stories with so many posts that the number of stories had become indiscernible little dots on the top of the screen, and see how I had barely anyone post a story about me.
And with that in mind, I headed into my 21st birthday without a lot of expectations. I knew better than to hope for too much, or to hope that I would get millions of birthday wishes. I even read an article about ‘What should I do if no one comes to my birthday party.”I expected a normal day with some food and family, end of story.
But I got more than I expected. No, I didn’t get a ton of wishes, but I got a lot of wishes from people I didn’t expect. Old friends I hadn’t talked to in weeks, months, or even years. Online connections that I had never talked to in real life yet interacted with constantly on social media. I received food, good wishes, old photos, and tons of positive vibes.
Short to say, it was a nice day.
What is the point of this story? I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I started this post wanting to talk about the quarantine, yet ended up on a spiel about birthdays.
Life never turns out as we plan it to. But maybe it’s not all bad.
Quarantine isn’t ideal, but maybe it’s allowed us to connect us in a better way — no longer just a connection requiring physical presence.
Maybe it’s a reminder that friendships do not need constant contact to remain intact.
Maybe it’s a reminder that wherever you are in the world, there are those thinking of you.
Maybe, it’s not all that bad.
