birthday woes me

* this post is one of my rough drafts that, funny enough, i never posted. now, months later, here it is. *(see the post where I ask you to bare with me...)

so my 28th birthday is coming up. next Saturday, august 30th. birthday celebrations are a HUGE deal to me. i love celebrating. i love finding the perfect gift for someone (which is not always timely but i like it that way too. i hate a forced or rushed gift. a gift months after your birthday is common from me...) i love making a nice card. i love, LOVE making birthday cakes and cupcakes. (for those who don't know, i really love baking cupcakes. i have a double oven in my kitchen and can really crank em out. one time, for a friends baby shower, i got carried away with the different flavors and decorations that i all of a sudden looked up and realized that i accidentally made 112 cupcakes! that's right, 112!) i love celebrating with people through out the week in different ways. i love a good theme party. i love getting spiffied up for a night out for dinner and drinks. i love birthdays.

the problem is that i love birthdays so much that i tend to have high expectations and get stressed out when it comes to planning my own. i kick butt at throwing a party for someone else. i enjoy the decorating, the baking, the shopping, the invitations, the phone calls... i like every part that goes in to throwing a party for someone else. i love the details and most of all, i love that i am creating a special party for someone that i care about in a way that shows their personality at the party. but i HATE planning my own. it stresses me out.

last year for example was a disaster. for starters i was majorly pregnant in the middle of a heat wave, exhausted, hormonal and terrified of what our lives would look like in a few short months. i had high hopes that on that magical day of august 30th i would miraculously feel some sort of relief from the realities of life. most of all, i had hoped that i wouldn't have to make any decisions. i wanted desperately for someone to swoop in and say, "hey, let me plan your birthday in a way that highlights who you are to me. let me organize a party where you will be surrounded with people who care about you and want to help you celebrate...."

yeah right. who does that?

as I'm writing i realize that it might sound like i want to be the center of attention but that's not it either. i just want to feel comfortable, at peace and content with people who i care about to celebrate the passing of another year. i want to mark it as a day that is different from the (sometimes) mundane passing days. why wouldn't everyone want to celebrate the day that God gave us life here on earth. how cool is that? i want to rejoice in that. i want there to be good food, good music, white wine, flowers (mums and peonies) and lingering conversations. no small talk. i hate small talk. i am no good at it.

i cant help but wonder if my hang up with planning my own birthday is mostly due to
finances. i know that i can throw a great party on a tight budget but it takes a TON of effort. i don't want to put that work and money on someone else. i function on guilt. last year Stephen kept on asking me what i wanted to do on my birthday and i didn't know what to tell me except that i didn't want to plan it. everything that i could think of that i might want to do required more money then we had. i knew that if i told Stephen what i wanted to do he would insist (sort of) that we do it anyway and worry about it later but i just don't function like that. i wouldn't be able to enjoy it knowing that we couldn't really afford it ("it" being just about anything last year since we were saving every penny that we could in anticipation of Finnegan).

anyway, all of this to say that i hate that i get like this every year the week before my birthday. it's silly, right? wait, don't answer that. i don't really want to know your answer. i just want to have these feelings go away. maybe by writing them down and putting them out there for all to see, these thoughts will leave me. ? yeah right. hahaha.