All aboard the sappy train, here comes another heart warming post from yours truly.
So I had a birthday party Saturday night. My actual birthday is 7 days away if anybody wants to know, but who’s counting.

The past three years I have thrown my myself a huge birthday party. My 24th was “24 Hit the Floor,” my 25th was “25 I Will Survive,” and my 26th was “26 In My Pumped Up Kicks.” Now, I think it can seem kind of weird and a little self centered to throw yourself a huge bash. But, I’m OBSESSED WITH MYSELF GET OVER IT. No, I’m not really. I actually grappled with the idea of having one this year because I thought maybe I’m getting too old to do this, maybe it’s sort of dumb to throw this for myself. But I realized, I don’t even care about celebrating my actual birthday. Everybody has a birthday, obviously. The reason I do it is it’s an excuse to bring people together. It’s more of a celebration of friendship. There is nothing I enjoy more than making people smile. Whether it’s making them laugh from something I said, or just providing a good time for them.

It really warms my heart that people actually come to these parties. My family always says I have an eclectic group of friends and I do. I maintain friends from every era of my life: grade school, high school, college, work, etc. and they are all different people, with different interests, different professions, different backgrounds. For the past three years, people have come back for this party. The first time I threw it when I turned 24, my mindset was “I’m going to throw this awesome party. A ton of people are going to come. We’re gonna have fun, get drunk, be silly.” Typical immature way of thinking. Last year for my 25th, my mindset was a little different. I still wanted to throw a crazy party, and impress my new boyfriend, but I also wanted to bring my friends together. This year I had the same thought, bringing people together, except this year, I was touched more by it. People came this year who I haven’t seen since last year’s party and a few who I haven’t seen in a couple years who had heard how fun my parties were and they wanted to come.  I was surrounded by new friends, old friends, and family. All my brothers came. I don’t always tell them how much they mean to me, but they really mean a lot. I love hanging out with them. I still think they’re the coolest group of guys. I think people keep coming back for the same reasons I want to have the party in the first place, to be together. Like I said in my first post, life gets so busy and we can easily forget about what matters most. My mom says I have a real knack for bringing people together. I don’t know if it’s that or if people just come because it’s a fun, happy environment.

Losing touch with people who were once your best friends can happen easily. But keeping in touch and having things like this at least once a year can also be easy and is very important.  A phone call takes 2 minutes, a text message takes a second, an email, a Facebook message. Technology today makes it so easy to keep in touch verbally, but I don’t think a lot of us actually follow through to keep in touch in person. Facebook, email, etc, are the first step to keeping in touch. Setting aside time to have people over or to meet up somewhere can be so easy with a little bit of effort. I’m guilty of spewing the classic line “We should totally get together,” and then never following up on it. We’re human beings, we all do it. We can’t hide from that fact.

The older I get, the more I realize how incredibly fortunate I am to have people in my life who show up. I want to thank my friends, family, my boyfriend, for just being there. No matter how often I see you or in what way you are connected to me, you affect my life in such a positive way. You all mean so much to me. You’re all really good people.

Now, despite the fact that I had a mature mindset going into the party, doesn’t mean I was mature at my party. I had myself some fun within reason. I ended my night with cake all over my face.  I’ve decided, there’s no way I’m getting too old for this.

Can’t wait to turn 27.