Today I’m 34. It’s weird because it seems old for how I feel. My 30s have been a strange time. It’s sort of like I unwittingly hit a reset button as I approached this decade of life and now I’m getting jockeyed around through various life stages. For now I can only hang on for dear life and try to set myself straight.

In the mean time, I did have a really nice birthday – I always take the day off: I’ve never gone to school or worked on my birthday and I never will. It’s not that I care about my birthday that much, but growing up it always got bundled with the holidays and lost in the shuffle before New Year’s, so I like to carve out a little something to preserve for myself. I’m happy to work through any holiday, but my birthday is the one time I need to be able to completely disconnect guilt-free.

This time around I was up casually playing games past midnight. When I saw it was technically today, I ate a birthday cake flavored macaron as a treat. Zephyr was snuggling with me cute as can be and I felt peaceful as I lay there.

Eventually I went to sleep and slept in until 10. I woke up ever so briefly in the morning when Bestie was heading to work and fed Zeph. I usually can’t sleep in past 7:30 anymore so this was truly a treat. I then lounged around playing my games, looking things up online, and ultimately putting on some TV. My original plan was to go on a hike, get a dessert, and journal, but the day was dreary and Zeph was a snuggle bug so I went with the flow of a lazy day.

Just as I was turning off the TV to go get something to eat, Bestie came back and surprised me with a cupcake and song. It was super sweet of him! I snacked on that and then took a brief bubble bath to pamper myself. By then, Beezmo had arrived and we watched some Avatar Last Air Bender while he worked. I had made reservations for dinner at 6:30 and we hung around until it was time to leave.

We met up with Terminator at the restaurant and I gorged on way too many dishes. It was just the four of us but it was perfect. I’m not into large groups or fanfare, just good times with good friends. I’m really glad they could all make it out. Cupcake was in Thailand and Ceeburticus was in Seattle so they couldn’t make it, but that was quite alright. We’ll do something next year!

While I didn’t do any work, I couldn’t entirely escape talking about work given that I work with both Bestie and Beezmo. We kept it to a minimum and I appreciate their respect for that. I’ll be back on tomorrow but I like the freedom of today, not a worry in the world.