I had a birthday recently—seems like most people have one about every year or so. When I was a child I used to go all out (and by "I" I mean my mother) and have huge, elaborate parties. Medieval wars with marshmallow cannons and cardboard castles, outer-space explorations with aluminum helmets and edible aliens, sleepovers with no sleep. . .
Then I hit teenage-hood. I have a complex about getting older, I think the first time I cried on my birthday was when I was thirteen. It's not that I had a phobia of wrinkles or that I wanted to stay a lame barely-teen for eternity. Crazy as it sounds, I just LOVED being thirteen so much. Guess you could say I had a happy childhood—minus birthdays.
The tearful birthday tradition continued. I cried when I turned fourteen, and fifteen, and sixteen. No parties, no celebrations—in my defense, I did not dress up in black and morn like something had just died (maybe just thought about it). By the time I hit twenty I'd gotten a little better control of myself. Looking back I am soooooo glad I did not freeze myself at the young age of fifteen or sixteen, even though at the time that was all I wanted. To be stuck as a fifteen-year-old for the rest of your life. Yuck.
Finally, my college breeding hit, at twenty-one (almost) I wasn't going to stop aging because I threw a fit, and that I had friends, and I decided to party it up. I invited everyone I knew to play games and eat cake, and that's exactly what we did. I think we had at least two or three different kinds of cake and ice-cream, youtube watching, and games.
Some people know when there is a good thing, and then they know when to stop so there's not too much of a good thing (yes, there can be too much of a good thing). I tend to go overboard. For my next birthday instead of just having a party I decided to do intense things. Not intense things like normal people might do, but intense things like a person like me would do.
