Ashly Brady

You mean to tell me I turn 24 today? I still feel like I am 18, yet here I am going on year 24.

When people realize how old I am, they are always taken back. I do look a few years younger than my actual age, which I’m told is a good thing, and I’d have to agree for the most part. Except when I am going to a restaurant and get asked if I want a kids’ menu. This actually happened to me about 4 to 5 years ago. It’s okay. It really was funny but sometimes it can get in the way because people don’t take me seriously.

Being that my birthday was in the summer, I never got to bring cupcakes to school and my birthdays looked different from most other kids. Most of my friends had birthday parties with all their friends and did all that extra stuff. Whereas for my birthday, my family would go camping, and my mom would bake me a cake. I loved it and wouldn’t trade it for the world. I did have a few birthday parties here and there though. My most memorable birthday was my third grade birthday party that was at the local indoor swimming pool with all my friends from school. I got Hannah Montana concert tickets and the soundtrack CD for High School Musical 3. Such a fun birthday for a third grader.

I don’t think it was until high school that I really started having a love/hate relationship with my birthday. It is, and will forever be, in my top 3 favorite holidays, but I have struggled with my birthday for quite some time. High school was also around the time that I started to struggle with self-worth and was trying to fulfill everyone’s expectations of me. Between sports, teachers, parents, and relationships, there were a lot of expectations. Eventually, my self-worth became soley dependent on validation from other and how “they” viewed me. It didn’t matter what I thought of myself because, if others didn’t agree, then it wasn’t true.

I would get anxious and excited as my birthday would approach because there was so much anticipation to see how much and how many people valued me. Not to mention that the anticipation (and resulting anxiety) would create this idea in my head. The idea that my phone would be “blowing up” all day. That everyone would post about me online. That I’d be showered with gifts and everyone would want to hangout with me. The reality was always less than what I had created in my mind, so I thought that meant I wasn’t good enough. Because of all this, I became accustomed to considering others’ perceived validation of me as a means for determining my worth. So, birthdays became something I struggled with and would count down the hours until they were over.

It really wasn’t until this year that something snapped in me. I had had enough. I wanted to really understand what was going on with me since anxiety and depression are something I deal with on a daily basis. I wanted to feel like myself again. I started going to therapy at the beginning of the year to learn how to navigate my anxiety and work on self-worth from within. To stray from external validation. It is a work in progress, but improving.

Slowly but surely my birthday was getting closer this year, and I was starting to have those anxious thoughts again. So, I stopped, took a second to breathe, and asked myself what I wanted my birthday to look like this year. I asked, “How can I make myself feel special this year?” I thought about it and decided I was going take my birthday into my own hands. I was going to make it special for me. So, I made plans to go surfing at the coast on Saturday. I also made plans to have my family get together tonight to celebrate my birthday. To show my appreciation to myself, I am going to make the family dinner, and my mom is going to make a delicious cake, as she usually does. It is going to be a great time, and I’m excited for it.

Biggest take away from this year’s birthday is this: I can make it special, and I don’t need to stress about who is or is not telling me ‘Happy Birthday’ to determine whether I’m enough or not. I have always been enough for myself and for those others I choose to have in my life. I am excited and looking forward to this next year of my life. There is a lot of progression and good things to come!