Welcome to my first post on the new revamped WordPress blog! I recently celebrated my birthday so I thought I’d write a little about what goes through my head every year.

Every year my birthday becomes less and less important for me to celebrate. This year was no exception. Sure it’s the day I was born, but it’s just like any other day. People still go to work (I didn’t), buses still run, people are still born and we keep on moving round the sun as per usual. The world doesn’t stop turning for me and I don’t expect it to. Every year I say to myself, “I’m just going to have a quiet night in with my best buds Junk Food and Netflix”. Every year that doesn’t happen. It is however for a very beautiful reason.

People want to celebrate with me. 

Every year I feel pressured into doing something. People aren’t pushy, people aren’t forcing me to do anything. I put the pressure on myself. Every year I stress myself out trying not to have a birthday thing, then planning it, then booking it, then inviting people. The worst part is once I’ve invited people the fear that no one will come. The fear that I won’t feel comfortable enough to enjoy myself. The thought that there’s nothing to celebrate.

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But this year was a little different. I don’t know if it was the ridiculously brilliant cocktail of people I was with, the fact that we were packed into the beer garden so tightly or the tequila but my thought process changed. The thing that was worth celebrating was that I was still alive. I hadn’t let the over thinking, the mental health condition and my own lack of self esteem kill me for one more year. I had survived, my brain is a little healthier this year. My friends grow more and more incredible as each day goes by and the one day a year they help to make me feel like the world has stopped for a day, like people had stopped working and the buses stopped running. They actually ended up singing “Happy Birthday” so loud that the pub actually stopped.

This year I’m celebrating. I’m alive, I’m well and I’m blessed with great friends and family. I’m winning against my mental health conditions and I’ve come to enjoy my birthday again.