Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I woke up this morning and found a giant zit on my nose. Oh, nature. You cruel, cruel bitch. I am 100 years old and still battling with clogged pores and hormones. How terribly Macbeth-ian. I know that's not accurate, but I don't care. I'm too old to care about what I say anymore.

It's my birthday. I am surprised that I need to tell you this, because usually I have a good, long 12-week countdown to my birthday and I make sure to announce it as much as possible. But this year, I simply forgot. Blame it on age, blame it on Rochester-related depression, but I simply forgot that my birthday -- the most IMPORTANT day of anyone's year -- was today.

Before my amazing parents and super-fun aunt Sarah showed up tonight for an impromptu delicious, carb-y dinner tonight, I drove 6 hours back from seeing my bestie best best Madeline in Chicago. That super long car ride back from Chi-town to Crochfester was a long time to be alone on a birthday.

I tried to be cool about it and think about the awesome things that come with age. But all that stops at 25 when you can finally rent a car. After that, there's nothing important and it's simply not adorable to send out b-day invitations. After 25, birthdays are just ways of measuring what you HAVEN'T done....and then everything is dumb and over-thought.

I refuse to actually admit how old I am today. I do. Not because I am crazy or vain, but because I never want you guys to think of me any older than 25. That way, my lazy showering habits and ratio of bottles of wine to nights in the week remains firmly rooted in the naivete that is the mid-twenties. I feel comfortable there. I expect zits there.

So, without the fanfare and giant publicity stunt that usually comes with my birthday, I had this weird, uncomfortable, disgusting feeling. I do believe I'm growing up. But my God, how gross is this: I'm more worried about the aging eggs shriveling up in my body than the number of beer bongs I could do on a regular birthday night (answer: 5). This has never happened before.

A lot of people hit some magic age and think "I am this age, I need to be doing these things." But in my case, I've been coasting comfortably on "OMG, as long as no one knows I'm 100, I don't have to deal with real life." Age, to me, is only about how you feel. And I've always felt 25. Even when I was 21.

I loathe getting older as a woman. It's downright garbage. We are always supposed to be at some "phase" in our lives. If we're not mothers, we're supposed to be aspiring mothers, or soon-to-be wives or some such garbage that will always make women feel like whatever we are doing to just be cool at life is bull. At my age (which is 25), you start to realize that people are the worst. There is no magic age that you're supposed to be doing anything. Period.

Today, on my drive home, I thought about what I have built in the last 238592375810348673486 years. I thought about my family, my parents, my siblings, my husband, my in-laws and my friends. I thought "Is there any person on the planet luckier than me?" And I know there isn't. For the first birthday ever, I thought more about the people I have in my life and less about how many people showed up to a birthday party.

Tonight, I will be celebrating the fact that, despite being older, I am zero percent wiser. I still want my parents to tell me how to do things, and I still expect Geo (who is now my husband) to treat me like the clueless girl who sometimes shows up to overcook his chicken. But, it is my birthday, so here's my birthday wish:

I wish that you all could be half as lucky as me and twice as appreciative, but possess only a fraction of the neurosis.