Celebrating a birthday during a pandemic is pretty depressing, especially when pre-pandemic you had a 5-day amusement park-laden road trip on the calendar. I’m not going to lie and pretend like I was a big girl yesterday and being grateful for the good things because come on–we all know I’m a bitch baby Leo suffering from crippling me-me-me syndrome. So instead of recapping my actual boring AF 41st birthday (I’ll do that another day when I’m done pouting lol you think I’m joking), I thought I would bask in the past and revisit my 5 favorite birthdays of the last decade.
Because why not. Gotta get it out of my system so then I can move on and adjust to Year 41.
- 34th Birthday Dinner at Shakespeare’s
I don’t remember why I was so adamant about having a birthday dinner at this Shakespeare-themed restaurant outside of Pittsburgh, but I just remember sitting at the table, looking at all of my friends, and feeling really lucky to know such awesome people. Sadly, a TON of people at that dinner no longer live in Pittsburgh but I am at least still in touch with all of them. Actually, now that I think about it, I have more friends scattered across the country than I have in Pittsburgh, so that’s pretty depressing.
AnyWHO:
2. 32nd Birthday at the Roller Rink
I got gypped out of a big 30th birthday celebration (I think I spent the day helping a friend move into her new apartment and then I had a grilled cheese for dinner and to be fair, grilled cheeses are one of my all-time favorite foods, but come on guys). I was determined to have a re-do, so two years later, I rented an entire roller rink (it actually wasn’t as expensive as you’d think plus we were friendly with the owners) and invited all of my friends and pretty much the entire department at the law firm. My friend Kaitlin made me a Robert Smith cake and Roller DJ played a mix that I gave him which was full of post-hardcore, Phil Collins, Billy Ocean and “JACKIE BLUE.
” It was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had!
3. That Time We Did a Southern Road Trip For My 35th Birthday
This trip was SO MUCH FUN. If you click on the hyperlink in the title, it’ll take you the entire category so you can read all of the posts, but for the purpose of this post, I’m singling out the photo-post from my actual birthday where my friend Octavia showed us around her hometown of Savannah and even though it was like 100 degrees, we had the best time with her and learned so much!
And she took us the storied Bonaventure Cemetery! Traipsing around cemeteries in new-to-me cities with finally-met-IRL friends are the makings of an excellent birthday!
4. SEEING MOTHERFUCKING G-DRAGON WHILE TURNING 38
Any chance I get to repost this moment in my life, I will SURELY take it! I splurged (and by that I mean I used my tax refund) to buy VIP tickets to see G-Dragon on his solo tour in Toronto ON MY BIRTHDAY in 2017. I was within FEET of him and I’m not kidding when I say that I still get chills and Jello-legs when I go back and replay the video of that moment. This was honestly one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen, a real experience, and it was my first time in Toronto. Henry and I had a really great 3 days there and only fought once, on my actual birthday, and it was, of course, over where we were going to eat lunch because I am basically an infant when it comes to feeding time. But aside from that, it was just the best weekend, and my actual birthday was like a fucking dream because, um, you know how much I love G-Dragon, right?
Act III:Motte, Part 2: Where I Left My Body On Earth & Wafted Up to the Heavens
5. Turning 40 IN KOREA
Look, I don’t think I will ever have a better birthday than I did last year and I really honestly am grateful for that, all bitch-baby wah-wah jokes aside. Henry even pointed out on the eve of this year’s birthday that I have been very spoiled over the last several years and he’s not wrong; I was basically setting myself up for disappointment this year and COVID made damn sure to drive that one home, lol. Nothing I could have planned for yesterday could have topped last year, which was spent walking along the Chungyecheon, eating naengmyeon at a traditional Buddhist vegan restaurant in Insadong, and then attending a live taping of The Show, one of the Kpop Countdown shows that broadcast weekly in Korea. That whole entire trip was EVERYTHING and even though I’m Forever Sad that I’m not there everyday, my heart experiences a special type of swelling whenever I think back to that trip. You might call it obsession, but I call it—-yeah, OK it’s obsession.
When I think back to all of these great birthdays, I feel loved and excited and lucky that I get to have these great friends and experiences in my life, so maybe my 41st birthday was lame and non-descript, buy maybe GET THE HELL OVER IT, ERIN. They can’t all be great ones! And I mean, I did get to have cake, at least.
More on that sometime later! I fell into this spiral of Nelson Sullivan home videos on YouTube and I am fucking obsessed and wishing I was a club kid living in NYC in the 80s.