AND A HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (BEDS 002)

Welcome, friends, to my birthday weekend--a four day event, and the final four days before university returns to take over my life! I'll be straight with you--I have no idea what's going on, or what's going to happen, because it's currently still August and I'm trying to schedule as many of these damn blogs as I possibly can before I get too caught up in procrastinating my homework. (There will be cheesecake, though.)

But I do know one thing--today, as you all are reading this, I am 22. I am older than little ten year old me ever thought I could possibly get, and probably younger than the future fifty year old me could ever remember being. I am the age that Taylor Swift wrote a song about, an age that is once again a digit higher than that of my best friend, until she catches up with me four months from now. I am one year above the legal drinking age in the states, and 4 years above the one in my home province.

Every time my birthday comes around, I think, "I can't believe I'm this old." 22 is not old, yet it is, because I have never experienced an age any older than what I am. I will continue to think this every time a birthday comes around, every time my younger sisters reach milestones that I can hardly believe that I've already passed. I will continue to think that I only graduated a year or two ago, when in fact my old high school is now filled exclusively with people I have never gone to school with. I will continue to think that middle school was only a handful of years ago, when in fact it has been a near decade. And I will continue to deny that, with every passing year, the number of friends whom I have known for a decade climbs higher--because the fact that I am old enough to know someone for a decade is scary as hell.

But no matter how old I get, I will always use my birthday as an excuse to treat myself. I will eat cheesecake for days, and I will sleep in, guiltlessly, as long as I want. I will open presents and spend gift cards and ignore the fact that school is waiting for me at the end of it all. I will watch all my favourite movies and gorge myself on chocolate and play Sims until my computer craps out. I will surround myself with my favourite people and party--or chill--until I get sick of all of them (or until they get sick of me, whatever comes first).

And then, after all is said and done...I'll start counting down the days until Christmas, because there is not a single day that I love more than December 25th.

Until tomorrow,

- Justyne