Things aren't even bad. I really shouldn't even be freaking out. The papers are sorted and the kids are alright, but I know its incoming and I don't know what to do.

You see, I hate my birthday.

It gives my family another opportunity to disappoint and show that they don't understand me for one more consecutive year. I'd rather they send a simple note that they love me instead of things I'd never need nor want.

And the friends. Even my best of friends, or at least those who I thought were, can utterly wreck my birthday. Last year, my roommate moved out and barely anyone spent time with me. Every birthday party when I was young i spent at least some part of it crying. And when I stopped celebrating them, my friends would get me passive aggressive presents like getting me journals when they felt I needed to deal with myself more and talk to them less.

I hate birthdays.

I prefer the most meaningful five dollar trinket or hand-made thing over the three-hundred dollar jewelry that i will never wear in my life. I don't care if people don't go overboard for my birthday. Honestly I prefer they don't.

I just prefer they care and it really hurts when its pretty obvious by their present they more picked it to convenience them, to make them feel better.

No, Grandpa, sending me hundreds of dollars of makeup will not make me forget all the years you ignored me for my brother and the other cousins. It still doesn't. It doesn't make up for you tearing me down each time I have an idea that does not align with your ideals. When you are so pained by the thought of me having my own thoughts that don't coincide with yours you insist I am young and dumb and know nothing. Funny you act like you know everything when you don't even bother to know me.

And my high school best friends. You complained about walking on eggshells around me, and stressing about my feelings, while I felt you barely were treating me like a human being. So the perfect remedy was to hand me several cheap journals so that I can write things out. Of course I'm left-handed and writing things out on paper hurts after about five minutes, but awesome, thanks, I totally feel the love.

Why in the world should I care about my day when every time I try to, everyone else knocks it down?

Of course I stopped trying to make it special when it always went wrong. Of course I get uncomfortable about it now. Of course I feel more dread than excitement on the one day things are supposed to be nice for me. Of course I'm so scared about it incoming, because I don't want to spend another birthday with no memories, or ones bad enough to make me dread the next one even more.

At this point I don't even know if I care about my birthday. I wish it would disappear. I want to love it and feel special and feel loved but every one I can remember didn't manage to make anything better. I feel worse with everyone that comes.

Maybe this is why I love Christmas, because my parents and grandma get me such nice things and my family gets so cozy and cheery around Christmas, that even the painful reminders don't get to me as much, and even if they do I get to see my family's smiling faces when they open presents from me, and it makes me feel a little better about the whole thing.

I should love my birthday, but I don't. And I'm sad that after 20 years I'm so worn down that even the thought of it incoming makes me want to forget it.