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It was expected. It's been a few years since I've last had a happy, tearless birthday.
I've had happy birthday parties, get togethers with wonderful and hilarious gifts I will always be thankful for. But in the end, I always go to bed, and cry on my birthday.
I don't dislike getting older. There has always been this thrill, what will happen next? Is this the year everything changes? This time, will I truly become something else?
But the thrill tones down. Another month turns into another year, and you forget what it felt like to be seventeen. There's this odd comfort to it. Maybe, this year, nothing will change, and I will stay the person I am, and that doesn't feel so bad.
Sometimes though, it turns into fear. The older I get, the more likely I am to lose the things that matter. I am terrified, so I cry, and hide in the arms of my mother because then I am her child, and it's okay to feel lost again, it's okay to feel the size of the world around me.
Age is a thing so big, while I still feel so small. So unprepared, and a little unsure of where to go next.
So maybe, just in my head, I'll stay eighteen for a while longer. Maybe if I'm not ready, and I don't feel like today is the right day to get older, and I still can't quite let go of that scared, fragile part of me that still has so many things to learn about living as an adult, maybe it's okay. Maybe I'll just keep crying on my birthday.
And maybe one day, I'll have it just a little more figured out.