It's just a number

Aside from Christmas and summer vacation, I'm pretty sure there is NOTHING that gets a kid more excited than their birthday. Birthdays meant parties with your friends (a PRIVATE skating party at the Rink in SL if you were lucky), birthday cake (from the STORE if you were lucky), and presents. Personally, I always liked getting cards in the mail because I was weird and liked getting mail (bonus points to Grandma Struck because her cards always came with $5, which was a pretty big deal when you are a kid.) After you get a bit older, the only birthdays that seem to matter are the ones where you gain a cool "privilege" or whatever, like turning 14 (learner's permit), 16 (driver's license), 18 (ability to purchase cigarettes and porn, not that I've ever bought either), and 21 (ability to *legally* purchase and consume booze in the public venues.) After those big "privilege earning" birthdays, the only time anyone seems to really give a crap about a birthday and throw a big party is when your birthday happens to be one in which your age will now end with a "0." It really just starts to become another day of the year where your phone is constantly buzzing with "So and So posted on your Timeline" notifications from Facebook, you go out for food/drinks with your friends, and then come home and go to bed. I turned 23 yesterday, and it literally was just any other day. I woke up, I got ready for school, I went and taught. The only difference is that instead of coming home after school and working on a puzzle and watching Disney movies, I went out in Sac AND in Lake View (party animal, am I right?) I don't feel any different being 23 than I did being 22. It's just a number. Somedays I feel like I'm 60, some days I still feel like I'm 12, but 23 is the real "number." The only difference I can foresee anymore is that I have to remind myself to say 23 when people ask me how old I am.