Happy Birthday to me?

It's my birthday! I'm on vacation! This is fun!

Or so I thought..

I made a promise to myself that for as long as I live (and with a job), I will not work on my birthday. Growing up, I was deprived of the chance to celebrate it. The last time I remembered having a grand birthday party was when I was 7. After that, the next one was on my 18th birthday. Nothing extravagant - I just spent the day swimming with my friends in a nearby pool. Then my mother prepared some pansit and a goldilocks cake for us to share. Imagine how I celebrated my first birthday after I got a job. Still nothing spectacular, but at least I got to buy a cake out of my own pocket. :)

Every year my celebration gets better. From a simple party at my house to a Baguio trip with my family. This year, I wanted to celebrate it with a bang. You see, it's my last birthday as a single woman. A thing worth celebrating for me. But some things happened beyond my control. Our wedding budget ballooned and I have no money to spare. So my celebration was cancelled. But still, I didn't go to work. That's still good news.

Expectations destroyed me that day. I was waiting until the clock signals the start of my day at 12mn for birthday texts. Only one came at 12:05. And that was not from my boyfriend. I suddenly remembered the happy days when people remembered birthdays not through Facebook Notifications. The greetings were sweeter then. Now, you have no way to determine if it was a genuine remembrance of your natal day or if they just saw someone greet you then mimic it. I slept with a heavy heart. 

I had a hard time waking up that morning of November 9, 2012. Finally, a birthday text from the bf! But still he has to go to work and our out-of-town plan was still a plan. I decided to sleep the whole day instead. I went out of my room only to eat and watch TV. No one bothered to greet me. It felt like nobody from home even remembered. Maybe there's a surprise for me later? 

By around 7pm, bf arrived with my cake. So there's no surprise party. But Thank God I have a cake! I called my family to have a taste of it. But before doing so, I asked them to greet me first. What a lame move to have someone personally greet me! I got devastated that nobody even made an effort to greet me just because I didn't prepare food.

Anyway, here's my beautiful and sweet birthday ice cream cake from D.

Lesson learned: Expectations killed the cat (or was it curiousity?). For me this was my worst birthday to date (in terms of my emotional state), but still i'm thankful that a simple birthday cake saved the day. With that, I owe D a big thanks.