Thoughts about my 23rd birthday
DISCLAIMER: I wrote this post a week before my birthday but I decided to share it as these were truly my thoughts and feelings for my birthday this year and this post might help you reconsider the importance of birthdays as it happened to me while writing it.
I've always warned people that I am a very shy and introverted person. I feel awkward and even scared of socializing and having to interact with people that I don't know well. I know that it may sound strange or exaggerated to some people but there are many times that I have been stressed out over the thought that people believe that I am uninteresting and unfun. I have even spent time imagining a group of friends talking and laughing while I'm in the corner striving to come up with something to contribute to the discussion but remaining silent in the end.
Odd as it may sound, I do have friends. I have two groups of friends with whom I can be myself as I have clicked with them and no self-doubting thoughts cross my mind whenever I am hanging out with them.
So, you'd expect that I would be excited to celebrate my birthday with such a special bunch of people. And I would be if that could actually happen. The majority of the members of each group of my friends reside in a different part of the country or even in the world. And don't get me wrong, I love the fact that they strive to fulfill their dreams or to improve their conditions of living even if that means that we have to be far away from each other. It is only now that my birthday is coming up that I feel alone. I've always been a lonely person and I am fine with it as I have never felt alone thanks to my friends. But now, I can't stop thinking that my birthday will be an ordinary day as most of my friends won't be here to celebrate with me. It is that they are away living the life that they were dreaming of while I am left behind not knowing what to do with myself. Next year, I'm going to spend my birthday alone because I will -hopefully- be studying in England. And I am happy with that as this is what it takes to make my dream of doing a masters come true. This year, however, I feel like a failure for doing nothing but waiting for universities to accept or reject me.
Writing all these thoughts and feelings, I see that it is not that I'm afraid of being alone but that this year I wasn't as productive and successful as I would like to be. I long to go back to studying because I know that this is what I need to do in order to meet the requirements for having a career in my dream job. And because right now I can do nothing to move towards that direction I feel that this year is a total waste.
Although I am sad that I cannot really enjoy my birthday and all the other days of the year until I receive answers from all the universities I have applied to, I am sure of what I want and that my choice of moving abroad for studies is the right thing for me to do. Thus, we should see our birthdays not only as a chance to party but also as the time to see what we want to do with our lives. And once we do know, we should act no matter how difficult it may seem so that our future selves can be happy and content with our life choices.
My birthday readlist:
Comments
Post a Comment