In which the concept of birthdays is explored

Most of the people reading this probably do not know that my birthday is coming up. (It's on May 27, so it's exactly a week from now. I'm turning nineteen.)

Therefore, most of the people reading this probably do not know that I am not looking forward to my birthday. I frankly do not see a reason for me to look forward to it. It is not a celebration of any success of mine, unless you consider "not dying" to be a "success". There is nothing particularly interesting about the fact that I have traveled around the sun nineteen times. It doesn't help that I don't have friends or even acquaintances who I see with anything resembling frequency with whom I can "party" and "enjoy myself". (I'm trying to host an event in which a bunch of people and I go do something, but I'm not hugely looking forward to it because 1. it was poorly-planned and there's no way to change it at this point, and 2. it'll feel terribly awkward to try to "party" with people I haven't seen for a long time, which is the case for practically everyone who will be present at the event.)

However, I was communicating via internet to a former acquaintance with mine with whom I don't talk terribly frequently (and who, incidentally, is probably not going to the aforementioned attempts at celebrating my birthday), and he said this interesting thing in regards to how I don't think celebrating my birthday is a particularly worthwhile or useful thing:

"The thing with things, though, is...well, most things are useless. The color green, for instance, is largely useless. (Even plants don't need it, which is why we see so much of it in photosynthetic life.) Yet, the color green has the potential to make someone happy, or maybe just content. I don't know, I like sitting around and thinking, 'The color green is a thing that exists, and it's sort of pleasant and doesn't really hurt anyone'.
 
"I see other people's birthdays as an opportunity to show them that I think they're swell, and I appreciate them...Like the color green, it has positive potential, and I hope that you'll end up enjoying it to some small degree, even if it's just the acknowledgement that it's a thing that exists."

Sometimes, the only thing you can do about a thing, especially if you're having less positive feelings towards it than you'd like, is to acknowledge that it exists. You can't bring yourself to acknowledge that it's positive or even that you're glad it exists without breaking honesty. But you can acknowledge the fact that it exists, and (probably) doesn't hurt you, and if it's a pleasant fact, you can possibly even enjoy this fact about it, even if it doesn't feel personally give you pleasant feelings.

I am going to make my best attempt to approach the events of a week from now with this mindset. Or something.