So let’s talk about birthdays. We all have them. After a certain age, we all dread them.
This birthday of mine was particularly dreadful. I turned 25 this year. To some of you, I may still seem like a child. To others, perhaps I look just past the peak of my prime.
The point is I’m a quarter-life crisis queen right now and turning 25 is not helping. It might even be the foundation of it all.
That and I just got dumped after three and half years, I’m still in school, I don’t know what I want to do post-graduation and I’m cursed with an insatiable thirst for relocating (I blame the military brat in me).
Two days before my birthday, I had the unfortunate displeasure of hearing through the grapevine my ex of three and half years, who dumped me about a month ago, had apparently moved on to bigger and better things (not bigger at all actually—she’s a stick) after being broken up not even a week. I wish them a long a fruitful life together.
Not really, though.
Not at all actually.
Did I mention we were friends? Anyway, I digress.
The night before my birthday, one of my best friends dragged me out of the house demanding I not spend midnight alone with nothing but a bottle of red wine.
After having a couple drinks with him, we decided to venture out for a “casual” night. I told him I wasn’t going to tell people it was my birthday because 25 felt like a day of mourning, especially in my situation.
Long story short, everyone found out and everyone choked me with whiskey, tequila and he thought he’d destroy my night with a shot of absinthe.
After maybe five shots or so, of course, I saw the b*tch who hopped right on the opportunity of benefiting from my breakup (quite literally). Me being the friendly drunk I am, approached her with a smile assuring her whatever relationships they destroyed between the family was on them, but that I didn’t care. Oh, forgot to mention she’s also his brother’s very serious ex.
I think my mind was so overwhelmed that I decided to clock out until morning because after that, I completely blacked out.
Waking up on my 25th birthday with what is arguably the worst hangover in the history of hangovers, I walked up what seemed like a mile of stairs and drank approximately enough water to fill a small pool. I sat on my wood floor pondering the gods for whatever terrible awful I did in a past life that made the bad karma just not stop.
In that single moment all that happened in the past month hit me like a freight train and I could do nothing, but sit on my floor and weep.
Knowing I was going through some challenges, my brother and dear friend surprised me by coming in town later on that day. It was exactly what I needed. All of my closest friends and my brother stayed at my house and together we killed 11 bottles of wine and finished off a bottle of Jack Daniels.
I was pampered with fantastic food and even better company. The night was perfect.
But like every drunken night of mine… something had to go wrong in some comedic way.
Of course, we all ended up in the ocean at 2 a.m. Of course.
We were all swimming and jumping and trying to flip off each others shoulders and hands. One of my more uncoordinated friends decided he was going to try and he hardly rotated. There was no chance for him to flip all the way around but because he hardly rotated and jumped slightly sideways, the back of his head hit me square in the face harder than I’ve ever been hit in my life.
I was submerged into the water and as soon as I came up for a breath, I felt hot liquid streaming down my face.
So there I was, literally chumming the water at 2 a.m., hoping my nose wasn’t broken.
When I got to the shore it looked like a crime scene or at least that scene from “Meet the Parents” where Greg hits Pam’s sister with the volleyball.
My nose was split and I probably should have gone to the hospital to get a stitch or two, but I was too drunk and happy to care.
Needless to say, I spent the next few days with butterfly bandages and Steri-strips shaped like an “X” over the bridge of my nose.
I noticed people noticing me, but before I let it boost my confidence, their smirks and struggle to hold in laughter brought me back down to earth.
Twenty-five has felt like a curse, but the fact that after all of this stress and emotional pain, my birthday ended with a bang (but seriously) makes me realize that no matter what life throws at you, you have to take the punches, spit in the face of all that shit and laugh about it.
When you laugh at what seems like an endless list of terrible encounters, you realize that it can always be worse.
Scoff at the bitch that is life and maybe she’ll respect the sass and give you a hand.
