Consider

It's my birthday today; or rather, an anniversary of the date I was born. I find it strange that we decided this is a thing we do now. Hey, so cool that the Earth is (probably) at the same relative angle with respect to the Sun as the time I was born. It's totally a personal accomplishment and it needs to be celebrated, specifically with cakes, candles, balloons and that song. And I don't get it. Woo-hoo?

It's an achievement on its own that I managed to survive for twenty five years. Quarter of a century. This is a quadranscentennial occasion, as a certain frog-loving friend would call it. I want to rank all of my birthdays, for the sake of it. I don't have anything better to do right now.

Coming up in the last place is my very first birthday in the year 2000. That's how everything started. Hard pass, never again.

Coming up in the second to last place is my 18th birthday. I tend to not celebrate my own birthday, but this one was special to me. It was the day I would legally become an adult! Exciting! So you can imagine I threw a huge party and invited everyone. Well, it coincided with the Sacrifice Feast that year, so we drove to a village in the province to get the animal to the butcher, wait while they clean the meat. In the 40 degree heat, I stayed alone in the car since blood gets my stomach weird. I sat there without mobile data for hours. We came back home. My parents and grandmother were tired. We all slept.

Next spot is my 19th birthday, just a year after the previous one. (I guess that's how years work.) This time I celebrated it with my family and happily ever after, right? Not really. This was the year I started college in the Netherlands. I had to leave early for the orientation week which I spent studying calculus. My first birthday without my family. Sadly it wasn't the last either.

Next one, 14th birthday. I was likely having a nice day with my parents, somewhere in Turkey. I was to leave my house to a boarding school in a couple of days. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I would never come back. I graduated from high school 6 years ago. What do I remember about it? The day my parents had to drop me off at the campus, starting their 1300 kilometer drive to the new home, stop on the side of the road after they disappeared from sight, and probably cry as hard as I did.

Next up, 23rd birthday. I don't remember how the day itself went, but I sure was upset. I don't want to name who that was publicly, but I had a guest in the beginning of the month. They threw such a tantrum that my entire year was ruined. After they left, I was a regular at a therapist. From August to May is really blurry forn that reason. I still haven't recovered.

What saddens me is that those are all the birthdays I remember. I was never good at record keeping in terms of pictures and videos; I wish I could remember what I did in every single one of those birthdays. Such a weird thing, brain is; I associate my birthdays with negative events, now that all I can remember from those days is also negative.

This is just a retrospective thought. It can't be that I made no memories, but why do I not remember them? Call it a quarter life crisis if you want, but I don't like this false implication that I had done nothing in the past 25 years. I live in a corporate world and inevitably serve my corporate overlords with the fraction of wealth they own, live a humble life that will not leave a significant mark on this world after I am gone. So I want to make the most of it, while I am still here.

But I can't shake off my hate for birthdays. I have a constant fear that something negative will happen very soon. Out of my control. I don't want to celebrate it. Out of fear. It's fine to be reminded of the anniversary of the day I was born, sure; and I am grateful for it. I wish 21 August was the anniversary of just that. And I wish I had recorded the good things that happened on the very same day.

As sad as I am because my parents could not make it due to financial concerns this year brought for both of us, it's this year. I am sitting by my monitor past midnight and feel grateful for everyone around me.

Last Saturday I cooked a cozy dinner for some of my closest friends. Even though I tried to argue it wasn't a birthday dinner, it was. My stubbornness has a limit and is easily overwhelmed when it confronts three people at once. And today, despite my best efforts in rejecting to be fed at a restaurant by other close friends, I failed. It just happened to be a festival day in Amsterdam too, so we've got to enjoy big ships and fireworks by Amsterdam Centraal train station. This time I recorded it.

This is what I want to remember 21 Augusts for. I will reclaim this day. Thank you for being here and being the best people one would wish to encounter in their life. I hope to see you on my remaining 55 birthdays based on the life expectancy in the Netherlands.