story of a girl

Dude, pare, nag-birthday ko at isang taon nanaman ang itinanda ko. Tsk, tsk.

I didn’t expect that the birthday blues I would have this year would be stronger. I am absolutely happy about my birthday, I just can’t seem to find joy in the fact that I’m going to be one year older, one year closer to the mid-twenties phase, hmmmph!

For the past days, I can’t help but think why it was so much easier to accept that birthdays actually mean additional age back then.

I didn’t mind turning 18, 19 or even 23, in fact I was so excited to grow old fast, but now I don’t feel ok thinking that I am actually growing older and it’s faster than I have imagined. Maybe it’s just me, maybe we all have birthday blues and mine’s the shallowest but still, this birthday feels ironically sad for me.

I enjoyed the string of celebrations of course, the different dinners with my family and sets of friends, the party with the kids at Meritxell, my valentine/ birthday date with Shin and all others. But something about turning 24 just doesn’t seem right.

For one, I suddenly noticed that the conversations I have with my friends are now about serious stuff. Like when we were talking about settling down, and it wasn’t just a mere thought-of-the-moment discussion, it sounded as if it was real, like anyone of us ought to go to that path soon. We were talking about real situations, real people we are involved with not like the chats we’ve had before, not the dreamy and the young kind.

There were fears that we never seriously discussed and talking about them now in that manner got me scared because it was like admitting that those fears actually exist and must be dealt with soon.

The frustration I feel after not being able to fulfill the expectations I have for myself keeps getting heavier. And the list of expectations keeps getting longer. It’s as if I need to compensate for the number of years that I have been existing, the need to do more fulfilling stuff, make responsible decisions and “of-the-age” actions are becoming inevitable and the lack thereof just gets into my nerves.

I know I just need to relax and enjoy the whole unavoidable cycle of getting old because the journey and the experiences we get from it is the main point but the gift of having a less complicated and less serious life wouldn’t be bad too.

I am grateful to still have a long, long way to go, to be blessed with more chances in life, and that a year older might actually mean more wisdom (I hope!) and more maturity but silently, I wish to go back to that day when things were more simple, when people were more appreciative and when the view of the moon was enough to make me smile and send me off to a good sleep – those times when knowing that you’re doing well and giving the best of what you have is actually enough to get your mojo back and that no bad thing can bring you down. I wish to go back to that, even for just a day.