Another year older...

On Sunday, it was my birthday, and if you know me well, you might know that I'm weird about birthdays. I always have been. To be clear, I have no qualms with celebrating other people's special days, throwing confetti at them, writing them cards, and eating their cake. But my own DOB always seems to be accompanied by a slight hint of dread. When people wish me a happy birthday, I tend to respond with morose comments about aging and crawling closer and closer to the grave. Yeah, I'm that guy. And given the fact that I'm still relatively young, it's especially crazy. I am sure my eighty-something self will want to give my twenty-something self a swift kick in the ass for all of my premature existential crises. 

But the fact that I know they are irrational so far has not stopped me from having these mini-birthday-freakouts, and this year was no exception. In the days leading up to my twenty-sixth birthday, I felt queasy with anti-anticipation. 26? Who turns 26? Am I officially in my late twenties? What have I done with my life? What is happening to my metabolism? Am I dying?!

(Does this happen to anyone else, by the way? Just me? Cool.)

Come the day of my birthday, I fully expected to be my jaded old self but alas, my plans were thwarted. The thing is, you guys, I know some amazing people. And even with my propensity for birthday misery, their kindness totally outweighed any of my angst. All weekend long, I had cards and gifts pouring in from so many different people. I don't expect every year to be like this, but man, I kind of felt like a kid again. Positively, spoiled rotten. Armed with an email inbox full of sweet words of affirmation, it turned out it was pretty much impossible to think about the inevitability of death. 

Oh, and also, I had some sangria. So that helped too.

So thanks to everyone who helped get me through my birthday! I felt positively rich with love and friendship. A special thanks to Daniel, my hunky as all hell husband, who would give his right arm to make me happy (but babe, I would never ask that of you. Don't give anyone your right arm, no matter how much they offer to pay you. You need that thing!).

Case in point, even though he swore he wouldn't get me anything, he and my parents teamed up to get me a DSLR camera! I could not believe it. This thing is going to be an absolute game changer for me. I mean it. Thanks to Camilla (that's what I've named my camera, by the way), you can expect to see this ol' blog become a photographer's dream. Here's the first picture I snapped:

I swear I'll get better.

How do YOU feel about this whole getting older thing? 

Are you a fan of your birthday?

OH! And before I go, this has nothing to do with my birthday, but my friend Clinton Washington performed on The Voice last night and pretty much changed the world forever with his rendition of "Stay," which he performed alongside India Carney. If you haven't watched it, I'll just leave it right here for you because dammit, I'm pretty proud of that kid.