To Acknowledge or Not...

DISCLAIMER: Feel free to skip this post. It's not exactly fun and positive. And it certainly isn't meant to get sympathy--in fact, that is exactly the last thing I want. Seriously. Don't even think about it. In fact, I think I'll back date this so no one sees it, just to ensure that doesn't happen.

So there is a day coming up and I'm not sure that I want to acknowledge. It's my birthday soon. Ok. I know that I'm not "old" old, but I'm not feeling very happy about this. I'll be 27. Again, I know that is not a tragedy--but it kinda is--at least it seems so to me.

Everyone is all like, "How are you going to celebrate the big day? We should do something fun!" Well, that's great. I don't really want to do anything. I'm not going to. I don't really care to.

I feel like I haven't accomplished anything in all those 27 years. I haven't even hit a lot of the major milestones yet. I'm not going to elaborate on what the "milestones" because its embarrassing, but still. I know I'm judging myself kind of harshly about it but I'm not really sure how not to. Anyway. Why bother celebrating something that isn't happy?

The other thing about my birthday is that something always unpleasant (or worse) happens. Its been that way for probably the past 10 years or so. I'm not joking. At the risk of sounding like a complainer (I don't mean to), I am going to provide some examples.

When I turned 16--my mom forgot my birthday. She'll swear this isn't true--but she didn't acknowledge the day at all until late that night. And my friends forgot too. 5-6 days later, they were like, "Wait, when is your birthday again?" Yeah. Seriously. It's a true story.

I don't really remember my 18th birthday because it was overshadowed by probably one of the worst and most embarrassing experiences of my life. Please don't ask me about it.

Four years ago, I found out that I have a condition that will make it very difficult for me to get and stay pregnant--eventually--when I get to that milestone. It was devastating to say the least. Thankfully, I'm fine and it is definitely not life threatening--but it is sad to me.

The next day was my birthday and Stake Conference. I thought Stake Conference would be wonderful and uplifting and help me feel better. Yeah, not so much. I'm not joking when I say--EVERY talk was about having families and how wonderful and magical it is and such a blessing, blah, blah, blah. Not exactly what I wanted to hear right then. I cried the entire time. It was so bad and uncomfortable that I almost left early. And I never, ever consider doing that. But then I decided to stick it out hoping that there would be the perfect talk just for me. There wasn't. I still don't know what I learned from that meeting.

(As a side note--I have learned to deal with this. And I am okay with it. I'm looking forward to the time when I'll be able to adopt! I'm so grateful that the Church has an adoption program.)

Two years ago, I found out that I have a fairly significant gluten intolerance a couple of weeks before my birthday (the week my sister got married) so I couldn't have her wedding cake or birthday cake. Not cool.

Last year I found out I have allergies to pineapple (one of my favorites) and walnuts and now have to carry an Epi-Pen with me. Not too long after that I found out that I have a pretty significant allergy to Wasps. That was painful.

Anyway these are just a few of the highlights, there are others, but I don't want to get into it. It just makes me sound like even more of a complainer.

I've had a few good birthdays, but I guess for me they have never been anything too special. Maybe that is why I love celebrating other people's birthdays so much--so that their birthdays are special--as they should be.

To end on a good note--last year's birthday was fun. It was on a Monday and I went to FHE, which was our ward's Pine Wood Derby. It was fun and my house won "Prettiest Car" Award. Then my roommates surprised me with a big cake (that I couldn't eat, lol) at FHE. It was really sweet. Afterward, some of our friends and I went to Cheesecake Factory-one of my favorite restaurants to eat.

Anyway--so that is how I feel about my birthday. I'm pretty ambivalent. I've gotten to the point that I just don't care. Life has taught me that when it comes to my birthday, if I lower my expectations enough, then anything positive will make like the best ever.