Birthday Diaries

I just turned 24. I was told that my 20s will pass by like a sneaky bastard. First you're celebrating your 21st birthday, next thing you'll know you're 30 and the whole decade just felt like a long trance. Well it's dead spot on! I can't remember my 22nd birthday and my 23rd is a blurry now. It could be my classic memory sucking or this crazy theory, like all the others I'm being told, is true. So I'm going to try and take notes for each of my birthdays from now on while I can still get a whiff of the past. Until I reach 30 or further notice.

I spent several excruciating minutes to recall something from my 22nd birthday. It's a shame I can't retrieve anything now. I am perhaps 1 year late for this. I am so glad I spent it with Jen, my one true external drive. She told me we spent it in a nice little hotel, watched TV and ordered food through the phone as fancy as it could be. The main treat there was the telly and air conditioning. It sounds like a perfect celebration to me.

My deepest regret so far is not being able to sing or make anything remarkable with Real (by Plumb) playing on the background on my 23rd birthday. I always thought I'd do it. But my 23rd birthday is quite depressing because of some unfortunate events that I could not tell without being vague, so I'll stop at that. I can remember we had a nice dinner a week after. We went to Chocolate Kiss, one of my favorite restaurant where I had pasta aligue with shrimp, my favorite, and grilled cheese. I guess it turned out to be happy indeed because I used the word favorite twice in one sentence. But if you are as sentimental and have the same weird obsession about life's theme songs, I hope this reach you right on time so you could sing, on top of your lungs, anything you please including Real on your 23rd birthday.

My parents sends me one of my first birthday greetings since I was away in college. Never fails. They're constantly there, passing the phone back and forth making me repeat the whole thing I just said to the other. I was never a big birthday celebrant. I have this crazy idea of birthdays being narcissistic, which is one of my extra pains as a human, I know. Haha, I just can't match the overrated joy of the world on ones birthday. But my folks, thank god figured out how to use loudspeaker, in their lovely and annoying ways, are there to make the whole thing halfway to matter.

This year, my birthday started 3 days early. I was on leave from work for 4 days because Jen and I were planning an out of town getaway but it literally rained on my birthday parade. We decided to eat out and had movie marathon at home. It was raining so hard, being at home with warm sheets and cuddle is the best thing you could wish for that day. I got new sneakers as my only gift, which is so awesome I squirm everytime the sole touches the ground. We've been to a frustrating journey from one street to the other all for getting my bratty ass a rootbeer float. Then we had ramen date night with her nice and funny office mates. There's that old tradition of eating noodles on your birthday to make your life longer and I guess eating ramen is relevant. Besides, I always wanted to eat on that fancy restaurant where the staff either invites you in or shouts "get out!", you can't tell because it's Japanese. It was a lovely day. With Jen there, for 4 days, everyday is my birthday.

There's my not-so-ideal birthday parties of the decade! Nevertheless, they're perfect as they are. Rest assured I wouldn't change any of it because I couldn't.




I told Jen I was writing a lot but I don't finish any of them, then she told me to go on and "Don't let the moment slip away." Because of that, not only I have something to close this note (hehe), it inspired the whole idea of remembering things that truly. It's not always bad as it seems.


Don't let the moment slip away, you, too.