For many people around the world, birthdays are events to be celebrated. When we're young, each year usually brings new milestones and other events to be celebrated, but let's be honest, we aren't even really the ones who are planning anything because it's mostly an event for our parents to get together and gawk at how cute we are. However, these birthday parties during the formative years of our lives can also set the standards for any other get-togethers that we will plan on having in the future, including our next birthday parties.

For example, the first birthday party that I remember actually having a hand in organizing was my eighth birthday party, when I was in second grade. I wanted to invite all of my closest friends (which amounted to four people, at most) to come do some fun activity, such as go to the movies, or go bowling. Being a person whose birthday is in the winter while not being a fan of outdoor winter activities like skiing, snowboarding, or ice skating really limits your options for planning parties. At any rate, I invited these four friends out to do whatever activity my soon to be eight year old heart desired, and they all seemed more than glad to come, but of course since we were only seven, they had to ask their parents first. Since the actual day of my birthday was over the weekend, we had to coordinate things at school on Friday. I was looking forward to spending my birthday having fun with my closest friends.

But nobody came.

I remember going to school that Monday with a heavy heart, since not a single one of my friends came to celebrate my birthday with me. When they all gave me whatever excuse they had for not attending, I played it off like it was fine and that I could understand the predicament. But I didn't. In my selfish, child mind, I didn't understand why my friends didn't want to come hang out with me, especially on my birthday. This set the standard for all of my future birthday celebrations being low-key with almost no grandeur or pomp and circumstance. Sure, I might bring in cupcakes or cookies or something to celebrate with my classmates, but that was it. Even that wasn't a guarantee some years though.

I recall trying to have some event for my tenth birthday a couple years later, but once again everyone was unable to come. I planned to return home and just finish out the day as usual. However, my parents tried to help me keep some of my faith in my birthday by having streamers, balloons, and cake waiting for me when I got home. I remember being so happy that I cried. We also went on to have a small family party at my aunt's house that weekend, which established the one birthday celebration of mine that we regularly upheld.

The following few birthdays were extremely uneventful, with the only notable one being my twelfth birthday where I got my own iPod Shuffle and Nintendo DS. There was also some birthday that I had where we actually did go bowling and played laser tag. I'm not sure exactly which birthday this was, and the only reason that it was memorable was because the guy working behind the counter was a friend of my brother and recognized my mom from his visits to our house. I distinctly remember him telling her to not worry about the cost of the laser tag after she asked how much it would be, but beyond that I've got nothing.

The next birthday that I attempted, and somehow successfully made plans for, was my sixteenth birthday. It was on a Wednesday, and it was the last day of winter break from school. In the morning, my mom rounded up two of my friends so we could all go to the DMV so I could obtain my learner's permit, and take my very first drive. After passing the test, we returned to the car, with me in the driver's seat instead of my mom. I only drove to the stoplight before the exit to the highway before my mom took over again, but overall it was considered a success. We proceeded to go and get our hair and nails done, and it was discovered that I look darn good with blonde highlights, even if people continued to ask me for weeks if I had dyed my hair.

Of course, reality had to set in at some point, and my next few birthdays were spent at work, slipping back into the uneventfulness of the years prior. One of the highlights of my eighteenth birthday was, however, receiving a handmade necklace from my boyfriend of the time. I'm sure that there was something else memorable that I'm forgetting, but we were also roughly two weeks away from opening night of the spring musical, so that period of time was a chunk of insanity. One might even say that it was pandemonium.

My nineteenth birthday passed uneventfully, apart from the medical crisis that was the blood clot that had developed in my left leg and that had only been discovered five days before.

My twentieth birthday was a vast improvement from the year before. I had made plans to go see one of my best friends at her university for the first time ever, meet all of her friends, and meet a potential new boyfriend while I was at it. I also went home to enjoy a nice dinner and some cake with my family. These plans went through effortlessly, much to my delight, even though some things didn't work out in the long term.

Last year, for my twenty-first birthday, I was pulling out all of the stops. I had discovered in June of 2015 that my favorite band was going to be playing a show in Montreal two days before my birthday. Of course my grandparents wouldn't let me go alone, so I ended up making plans to go with one of my newest, yet closer friends, who I admittedly hadn't met until I went to pick her up to take her to the concert. It was one of the best nights of my life. The next day, I drove my friend back home and spent the night at her house, having my first "official" drink while playing video games. It was the icing on the metaphorical cake of a perfect birthday weekend.

Of course, on my actual birthday, things took a turn for the worse due to my own foolish decisions, the consequences of which I am still dealing with today (and likely will be for the rest of my life), so the standards for anything to happen on my actual birthday this year are pretty low. If anything, the main goal is "survive". Maybe I'll go out and treat myself to dinner. Other than that, like most of the other years of my life, my birthday will just be another day.