For the longest time, I didn't enjoy my birthday. I don't really understand why people want to celebrate me. But the days of me pretending it's not my birthday are over. Since the age of four or five years old i've wanted to turn eighteen more than almost anything in this world. So now that it's happening I couldn't be more excited. It just seems like a really cool age; you graduate high school, start college, get to go to few places you weren't allowed to go to before like comedy clubs or skydiving. It's just awesome.

For anyone who knows how much this birthday means to me they also know the thing i'm most looking forward to is waking up in the morning and uttering the words "no thanks, I don't want a cigarette." (To no one in particular if I may add.) I know that seems pretty weird, but growing up in a Persian household most likely means that your parents smoke and so do your extended family. It's a cultural thing. In Iran, smoking, just like in America, is frowned upon as a whole. However, it is still seen as "cool" to an individual. Not to me though. I think it's awful that all my relatives smoke and that some of my friends are starting to as well.

But I would never treat them as a lesser person because of it. When I was a child, my sister and I would always ask my parents to stop smoking and would throw them away or take scissors and cut the cigarettes in half if we ever saw them laying around the house. As I got older though, my sister's drive to end my parents smoking habit grew stronger and I started to care less. Of course it still bothers me, but I can't control my parents and I believe that if they ever truly want to stop they will try to work on it themselves. Unfortunately though, somewhere between the age of fourteen to sixteen I found myself enjoying the smell and accidental inhale of a cigarette from people around me. So from that moment forward I decided the second I turned eighteen I would decide to put an end to my family's filthy habit by never indulging in that activity myself.

Another wonderful aspect of this age is how I am still looked upon as a teenager, but I have more power and say when it comes to the things I want to take part in versus pre-adult me who still has to attend all family events or other BS things unless I have a solid reason not to. On a bigger note, turning eighteen will finally give me the opportunity to take action for one thing that i'm very passionate about which is politics. Although many teenagers do a variety of things in order to have their voices heard, nothing is quite as powerful as voting. So now that i'll be able to do that I will take those opinions and not just voice them and hope my wish will come true but I will be a a part of the bigger picture which will in turn help my wish come true.

Last but not least, turning eighteen might make me feel like I will be able to show the more crazy, chill, wild side of me. By "wild" I don't mean running around getting myself caught in bad situations or getting drunk and flashing people like an idiot. But "wild" like I won't be so hard on myself, and I will start allowing myself to do more fun things rather than just stay home and re-watch Bob's Burgers for the umpteenth time...among other things. Maybe i'll get to try some new things and hang out with people I don't usually hang with but always wanted to.

Well, happy non-smoking politically wild birthday to me!