In a few days it will be my Birthday. I will be…25. For most, if not all (I am sure I felt the same when I was three, just nobody took any notice) I have hated my birthday. I viewed each passing year as if in mourning. I would blow out the ever increasing candles on my ridiculous cake, cursing the past year of unfulfilled dreams and promising myself that this year would be different. Not a great way to celebrate huh?

I had scared myself silly with the notion of passing time and growing older. For me each birthday symbolized losing my youth, my independence and being able to blame my fuck ups on my less experienced years. Instead I was being catapulted into a world full of responsibility, control and expectations, and I had no desire to participate in it at all.

I would listen to older relatives who had cornered me to lovingly inform me with a little of their own wisdom:
‘It all just passes you by so quickly’

‘Tara, you got a fella? tick tock, tick tock my dear, I had 3 kids at your age’ and my fave…
‘Before you know it Tarz, you’ve got a house and two kids, you’ll be too tired for anything , let alone sex ‘

FUUUUCK

I would be in a pre-apocalyptic state come birthday morning, after spending the evening on every self masochist favourite tool…cue drum roll… Facebook. Friends, peers , friends of some friend’s peer, it seemed to me everyone was happier, more balanced, more ‘getting on with life’ than I was. Profiles filled with friggen’ happy snaps of romantic holidays, new homes and bloody hell here comes the 3D virtual womb image! Yes, there’s nothing quite like seeing whats growing inside someone you have never met. All this is deliciously served up to make them look fab and me feel like shit.

Why don’t I have a steady boyfriend? A university degree I don’t use? A goddamn New Home Buyers grant!?
But most of all, why do I feel as excited as I do thinking about my yearly pap smear, as I do wishing that was my life?
Surely the Dalia Lama had it right when he said “The very purpose of life is to seek happiness”  Maybe it doesn’t matter how we chose to live our own life as long as we are doing just that…after all who said we had to live the same way and want the same things. Everyone is different right?

So this Birthday NO MORE! I have resolved to ditch the self pitying, judgmental little bitch that sits on my shoulder, in favour for a massive celebration of being different!!
So Happy Birthday to me, 25 years of some amazing up’s, a few annoying downs and a whole lotta FUN!!!!
Oh, by the way, make my slice of cake A Double!

Tara

About Our Youth Content Producer: Tara was luckily born on Unlucky Black Friday and has been lucky ever since. Growing up between Tassie and Perth she was an annoying child who demanded everyone’s attention. After exhausting her parents and her high school peers she fled to Europe to find fairytale’s and french lovers.  After 5 years and 15kg of blissful french food under her belt, New York called to say they were ready. Alas however, she was not. Sad, broke and dishearten with life, she returned to her parents farm in Northern
Tasmania all set for an emotional breakdown of epic proportions. Instead a little bit of humble pie, some warm chicken soup and some therapeutic wallaby shooting with her pa, she somehow managed to resurrected herself.. and now believes to be christ!
OK, maybe not Christ, but pretty damn close. A self confessed know- it- all, a hobby feminist, and a bird hater, Tara has seen too much, heard too much .. and  defiantly SAID too much. oh and by the way none of this is true

Would you like to be a Tune In Not Out Youth Content Producer? Contact us at crew@tuneinnotout.com

Image by: Stitcher Scribbler @ Flick under the Creative Commons license