I’m turning 18 tomorrow and I feel like time has flown by so fast. My parents are throwing me a huge party, my dad’s idea, of course, and it’s nonnegotiable because he wants his business partners and rich friends to show up with gifts. If you’ve seen my previous posts, you already know my dad has a bit of a greedy streak, lol.
I was in first year of college, but my birthday falls during winter break. So instead of being able to celebrate with all my awesome new college friends, I was stuck with like one good high school friend, two barely-friends (one was an ex, and their parents were friends with mine), and my gf.
It was… ok. Pretty underwhelming. Pizza and cake, got to watch a movie I had been interested in, and played some multiplayer game.
For some reason my gf decided she needed to hang all over me. Think she was trying to make the ex jealous, which is hilarious because there had been zero chemistry with the ex, I think we kissed once maybe. It did make the ex jealous, and my high school friend got to enjoy more attention from her than I ever got. Cuddling, holding hands, hugs, nothing further than that but it really highlights how little had been there with me and the ex. Still makes me laugh thinking about it.
I remember a bunch of private jokes before and after between me and my gf about me finally being legal, because we’d been fucking like the horny teenagers we were for around a year and a half.
Overall, not anywhere close to the big deal people tend to make it. I honestly didn’t remember any details until I sat and thought about it, and my memory was somewhat stirred by interacting with that high school friend again through work yesterday (ended up working for different sub-companies of the same org, doing similar work).
Plenty of more memorable times in my life. Only one birthday is particularly memorable now in my mid 30s. My 21st is memorable less for the birthday itself and more for everything around it, but the birthday is still memorable.
21st birthday
Around 4 months before I turned 21, in the middle of burning out/dropping out from university and a deep depression, I moved 8 hours away from my parents to live with some friends of my gf near her (same gf from my 18th birthday).
During that time I learned a hell of a lot about myself, and that my gf was stealing from everyone she called a friend. Shit hit the fan, a police investigation was opened that went nowhere, and I realized that she had been lying to me for the entire 5 years I had known her.
My world and plans for the future came crashing down and I moved back in with my parents, right before my 21st birthday. I had planned on going no contact with them.
Didn’t think I could trust my own judgement due to how much obvious shit I missed.
My college friends pulled through amazingly. My best friend had an apartment on campus and hosted the party, and most of my friends brought friends of their own that I knew decently. Pretty much everyone that I had happy memories with from my time in university was there.
Party with board and video games Friday afternoon into night, ending with our traditional “movie night” of two movies (at least one weird or awful) and a lot of drinking. Saturday morning just me and my best friend, still partially drunk bike ride into town for more booze. Day drinking, videogames, and binging our way through Red vs Blue. Sunday morning he tosses some cash at me and sends me off to the book store to get breakfast and a book he was raving about. Also to get me out of the apartment so he could have some time with his gf.
It was the first book of Dresden Files, which is a favorite book series of mine to this day.