And so finally the day of my 19th birthday has arrived. So quickly, I'm on to my last year of being a "teenager". I still remember thinking to myself on my 13th birthday, "I'm now thirTEEN, that makes me a teenager already". It definitely has been a long time since that was 6 years ago, yet it feels so close because of the effect memory has on the relative speed of time. Ever since enlistment, of course as everyone should know, my emotions have mostly been on the low end. And being me, I've spent a lot of time reflecting on life, meaning of life, speed of time, how we should spend our time and all that kind of stuff. The amount of cortisol I've produced in the last 7 months would probably be in similar levels as compared to the past two student years. Or does depression produce another sort of chemical? Anyway, I think that's the only positive thing about army for me - that I've learnt to appreciate life so much more. I have never given so much thought towards life until this year. I shall write about my thoughts on time at a later date because this isn't the main point today.
For the last few years, I've always tried my best to make the day as special as possible, by doing whatever I feel passionate about for that year itself. I would do all those things to commemorate the day. After all, a birthday is the only logical opportunity for a person to declare that day "his/her day" out of 365 days in a year. It would be the day where you make sure nothing goes wrong and it's like a fairy tale day. It's impossible to live like this everyday, so once a year would be just about right. I would do as many of my favourite and important activities on the day itself as possible, so that the day would feel as special as possible. One of the things I've made it a point to do on my birthday for the past 2 years was to go to the gym. It's a mark of passion for fitness (started since 2010 and has become a huge part of my life), and to me there's no other way better than to dedicate a few hours of this day to the gym. What's more, there's the endorphin rush after gymming, and that definitely brightens up my day, chemically. So, it becomes a bit like checking things off a checklist. Gym. Done. Celebrate with girlfriend. Done. Celebrate with family done. Go to my favourite places for a walk. Done. At the end, it feels good to look back and think, I've done everything I wanted to, there's no room for regret.
This year, before this day, I had the same intention. Additionally, I wanted to make the day even more memorable by having the birthday dinner at home. For many years past, I've been celebrating my birthday outside at restaurants. It used to be something that I looked forward to doing. Special day, nice restaurant, wearing my favourite clothes and going out for a great dinner with my family. But then this year I thought one way to make it more special is to celebrate at home. After all, what makes something special is when it becomes out of the ordinary. And eating out for a birthday occasion was becoming somewhat ordinary already. Furthermore, during my BMT confinement during recourse, I kept thinking back about the celebration for my dad's birthday when I was in Primary 3 (if i remember correctly). To simply describe the flashback in my head, I got home from school and the air-con was on in the living room, I saw dishes on the table and my mum and maid were busy preparing a meal. Then my mum saw me and told me it was my dad's birthday and we were going to celebrate. This story does sound somewhat "lacking" and it'll definitely make people wonder "so what's so great about that?" but it's just my description of the scene I remember. What's very significant however, and I'm unable to describe into a picture, is the feeling this incident gave me. There's a saying which goes, you may not be able to remember what exactly happened, but you'll definitely remember the impression it left on you. This is exactly the case. I didn't really think much of this incident until I was in confinement and missed my dad's birthday (which was on Aug 12) because of it. I realised the special thing about the memory from 10 years ago was the homely feeling it gave me. Celebrating a birthday doesn't have to be at a very luxurious place or anything, but it's the company that matters, and what makes it even better is celebrating at home, because I want to experience that homely family togetherness feeling over again. This is why the "ordinary dinner" is made special. Besides, I was getting pretty sick of the whole thing about going out to a nice place for dinner. One thing I don't enjoy is that you have to be very "civilised" and well-behaved at the restaurants. Can't speak too loud, can't eat like this, like that, can't do this, do that, ahhh so stressful. I can just be myself at home. There's also the dressing up part. Maybe it's my OCD acting up, but I'm definitely the sort of person who would make sure I wear my best clothes so I don't regret it when I look back on my decision a few years later. This is probably why I'm always so stressed hahaha. All because I want to make sure it's a decision I don't regret, and therefore I deliberate too much.
Now it's come to a point where I realise things don't always have to be number 1 and solely number 1 on this day. As long as it's somewhere along the top, it's fine. I'm still happy, everybody's happy, and I get less stress, less white-hair. Taking things easier should probably be my priority on the list. After getting home from camp today (booked out at 8.15am), I decided that maybe I could make this year somewhat different. Seeing that I only have one 19th birthday in my entire life, this was to be a decision I hope not to regret when I look back in the years to come (see! Yet again!). I decided to just relax at home and basically do nothing but being around the company of family members. It comes with a bit of the mentality of "you've made yourself tired on every birthday by running around trying to accomplish every task, why not just take a rest this time, lessen the stress of trying so hard". So that's basically what I did. Sadly, my parents weren't very supportive of the idea of me celebrating my birthday at home ever since I suggested it to them. They're like, "why don't want to go out and eat? Go out and eat better la. Celebrate at home like so boring". Regardless, they accepted my request and actually gave in, saying "well since it's your birthday then you just choose how you want to celebrate. We will do it our way when it's ours". But my mum's rather busy today to buy food for tonight (if I do choose to celebrate at home). I did offer to do the shopping by myself but that was easier said than done, as I'm feeling quite lazy and I didn't feel like I'd have enough time. So I've decided to just choose to celebrate outside, hopefully at somewhere nice in ambience, yet casual so I don't feel so restricted. We'll sing the song and cut the cake at home, so at least I've removed that (really very) awkward part where everyone stares at your table when the cake comes out with candles and the song is being sung. Knowing I'll regret it if I don't do that homely celebration I've been thinking about, I've decided that I will do it next year instead, and hopefully it materialises. For this year, the consolation is that I've also recognised during my self-reflections that it's the company that really matters after all, that's really the main course, and everything else is just like the side dishes. It doesn't have to be 100% perfect, just somewhere close to the best it could've been is reason enough to be happy :)
In case I begin to feel like I wasted my special day by not accomplishing anything significantly special, I'd like to remind myself that what makes something special is being out of the ordinary, and since I've dedicated my past few birthdays to doing something "out-of-the-ordinary", THAT'S become the ordinary. So, not doing much and taking some time to relax is the new out-of-the-ordinary, and that shall be what defines my 19th birthday to make it special.