Alright, fine. You were right. I get it now. I know you love to say “I told you so”, but really only do it if you must… I’ll wait…

Last year and the year before I asked you for a ton of stuff and, while I ultimately got most of what I wanted, it wasn’t enough to make me happy.

Wait. Just hear me out.

The problem with my requests was that I already have “enough.” I did last year and the year before that and the year before that and, even though I probably had it all the years before that, I didn’t know what to do with it, so I didn’t think that I had it. Does that make sense?

Anyway, despite my petty fulfillment of material things, I have found myself in tears on my last two birthdays. That is not okay in my book.

Look, maybe the bar of “AWESOMEBIRTHDAYSOMG!!!” was set way too high by the way they’re celebrated during childhood, although I never had anything overly expensive or glamorous. (The first 5 years, my mom just taped balloons to the backs of chairs at my play table and invited half my preschool class over. We ate homemade cake and did whoonlyknowswhat. And it was a big freaking deal to me.) Maybe I’m too old to believe that birthdays should be special and awesome; that’s possible.

But, then, I don’t run around with a boa, tiara and long white gloves on my birthday anymore (I stopped that when I was 16) and I don’t expect my friends to plaster the roadsides with celebratory signs (18th birthday) or cover my lunch-eatorium with overzealous decor (also 18th birthday). In fact, I don’t expect anybody to do anything, really; I’m amazed when someone remembers my birthday without having to be reminded by Facebook. So I’d venture to say I’m pretty leveled-out when it comes to my expectations.

I don’t think wishing for “No tears on my birthday” is too much to ask, especially since this is going to be my last year of being a twentysomething. I mean, knowing me, I’d go for a night of karaoke and drag queens and bowling and graffiti and Mexican food and sushi (I don’t know how those would go together) and art and old movies and stand-up comedy and ice-skating and dancing to a fiddler around a bonfire and reading tarot cards and smoothies and taking a bum out shopping and playing tag completely naked but covered in glow-in-the-dark body paint and pretending one of us is a celebrity while the rest of us act as an entourage/paparazzi and watching the sun rise over the ocean while eating pineapples and roasting marshmallows and dressing like Tammy Faye Bakker to get breakfast at a truck stop and ghost stories and other general mayhem, but I don’t want to get too extreme or wear myself out.

So, this year, I really, really just want to be happy on my birthday, Birthday Fairy. Seriously, that is all I want. Thanks in advance for whatever you can pull off.

L P-S