Personal Essay: "It's My Birthday and I'll Cry or Laugh If I Want To.... and the Song Goes."

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I’m sitting in my room, eyeing a half-empty bottle of wine, gearing up for another birthday. Honestly, the number doesn't matter much anymore; it's all about that mix of reflection, nostalgia, and a bit of joy. Birthdays have this way of making you stop and think about life’s weird twists—like how the small moments often hit harder than the big milestones.

I remember being a teenager, convinced that every little drama was the end of the world. My twenties were a wild ride of reckless choices—I thought I was invincible, but I was just stumbling through. In my thirties, I've learned to embrace life’s messiness and that it's okay not to have it all figured out.

What strikes me most is how memories sneak up on you. Sometimes it’s a song or a smell that takes me back to simple times with friends, moments I didn’t appreciate back then but now feel precious. As I get ready for this birthday, I’m torn between celebrating my journey and feeling the weight of time. But hey, that’s what birthdays are for—celebrating the chaos, the beauty, and everything in between. Each moment counts, and I’m grateful for them all. (Full version below)

 

FULL VERSION
I sit in the quiet of my bedroom, staring at a half-empty bottle of wine on the table. In a few days, I’ll be celebrating another birthday. The number doesn’t matter anymore; I’ve stopped keeping track. But the feeling that comes with it—the strange mix of reflection, melancholy, and a small flicker of joy—is all too familiar. Birthdays, after all, have a way of forcing us to stop, to take stock of life. And when I do, I’m struck by the weirdness of it all—the irony, the joy, the pain, the little triumphs, the defeats, the unexpected moments that have come to define me.

It’s funny, really, how we always think we’ll remember the big moments. The milestones. And sure, we do. We remember the jobs that changed our lives, the love we thought would last forever but didn’t, the friendships that survived distance and time. Those are the moments that we pin to our walls, as if they are the true markers of who we are. But sometimes, it’s the small, forgotten moments that come back to us unexpectedly, that remind us of the subtle ways life shapes us when we’re not paying attention.

 
Like the time I was a teenager, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling with music blaring in my ears, convinced that the world was ending because of some high school drama. I couldn’t even tell you what it was about now—probably a fight with a friend or a crush that didn’t reciprocate my feelings—but at the time, it felt like the most important thing in the world. In those years, everything felt monumental. Every slight, every failure, every triumph was magnified. I was convinced that the universe was watching, judging my every move. Looking back, it’s almost laughable. How small my world was, and yet how intensely I lived each moment. But I suppose that’s what being a teenager is: a whirlwind of emotions, where every high is the highest and every low feels like rock bottom.

Then came my twenties, a decade of reckless decisions. I thought I was invincible, as most of us do at that age. It was a time of freedom, of making mistakes, of saying “yes” far too often to things I probably should have said “no” to. I moved cities on a whim, started jobs I wasn’t qualified for, dated people I knew weren’t right for me. At the time, I believed I was figuring things out, but in truth, I was stumbling through life, making choices with little foresight, acting on impulse more than reason. Looking back, I cringe at some of those decisions. But I also recognize that those years taught me valuable lessons—lessons that can only be learned by doing the wrong thing first.

In my thirties, something changed. I started to understand the art of compromise. Not the kind of compromise that makes you feel like you’ve given up on your dreams, but the kind that helps you see the world for what it is: imperfect, messy, unpredictable. I began to understand that life wasn’t a straight path to success, happiness, or fulfillment. It was a series of winding roads, some of which led to dead ends, while others opened up to unexpected vistas. And in the midst of it all, I learned to let go of the pressure to have everything figured out. I realized that being an adult wasn’t about knowing the answers but accepting that sometimes, there are none.

One of the most striking things about getting older is how memories resurface when you least expect them. It’s not always the grand moments that come back to you. Sometimes, it’s the mundane. A smell, a song, a glimpse of an old photo—and suddenly, you’re transported to a moment you hadn’t thought of in years. Like the time I sat on a park bench with a friend in my twenties, sharing a sandwich, talking about nothing of consequence, and yet feeling completely content. Or the quiet Sunday mornings spent reading a book with a cup of coffee, unaware that those moments would one day feel like luxuries. These memories, once insignificant, take on new weight with time. They remind me that life isn’t just a collection of big events, but a series of small moments strung together—some forgotten, some remembered, all of them significant in their own way.

And as I sit here, reflecting on my life, I’m struck by the strange balance of it all. The joy and pain, the triumphs and defeats, they’ve all been part of this spinning wheel I’ve been riding. There were times I thought I had it all figured out, only to be proven wrong. Times I thought I’d never recover from a loss, only to find myself laughing again a few months later. Life has a way of surprising you like that—giving you joy in the middle of sorrow, or pain just when you thought you were on top of the world.

But the one constant through it all has been the people. Friends, family, lovers—they’ve all been there, in different ways, riding alongside me on this strange journey. Some have stayed, others have drifted away, but each of them left a mark. I remember the nights spent laughing with friends until my stomach hurt, the long conversations with loved ones that made me see the world a little differently, the quiet moments of support when I didn’t know how to ask for help. These connections, however fleeting or enduring, are what give life its meaning.

As I prepare for this upcoming birthday, I feel a mix of emotions. There’s a part of me that wants to celebrate—to raise a glass to the years gone by, to the lessons learned, to the people who’ve been part of my journey. But there’s also a part of me that feels the weight of time, the inevitability of loss, the bittersweet realization that life is as much about what we let go of as it is about what we hold on to.

In the end, maybe that’s what birthdays are for. Not just a celebration of the years we’ve lived, but a moment to pause and acknowledge the weirdness, the irony, the beauty, and the pain of it all. A reminder that life is full of unexpected twists, that it’s both fleeting and infinite in the way it shapes us. And as I blow out the candles this year, I’ll do so with a quiet sense of gratitude—for the big moments, the small moments, and everything in between. Because, in the end, they all matter.