Bad Things that Happen after your 25th Birthday

So if my Facebook notifications are advising me correctly, apparently yesterday was my birthday, and I’m pretty sure I turned 28. I’m sure it’s not just me, because many are the stories from those who have endured this trauma, but birthdays after 25 really start to suck.

 

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While I haven’t quite reached the point where I am reduced to a sobbing puddle while stuffing my face with cake and wine mourning the loss of another year of youth, birthdays after 25 still tend to be tame and best and at dismal at worst.  The mediocre birthdays would be okay if it weren’t for all the bad things that happen to remind you you’re old. Between 25 and 29, birthdays are just a crisis countdown of the imminent end of all things fun as we know it at age 30.  This may be an incomplete list as I still have a couple of years to add to it, but here are a few things only birthday grinches age 26-29 will understand:

  1. You have trouble remembering how old you are – Perhaps this is because you’re starting to lose your memory, or maybe it’s because you’ve stopped giving a shit.  My experience was before I was 25, when people asked me how old I was the number seemed to be top of mind at all times. I was always sure of how old I was, but after 25 I had to think about it. Sometimes after i thought about it I still wasn’t sure! I’ve been tempted to do the math a few times but I managed to pull myself together thus far, no promises in a few more years though.
  2. Everyone else is more excited for your birthday than you are – Everyone is so excited for your birthday! Except for you, you’re miserable.
  3. You get injuries that are mostly inconvenient, but then you cry and have a crisis because you’re convinced you’re half way to old age – For example, this past week I hurt my neck– How? Was it because of exercise? A fall? A hiking accident? No, because I don’t do any of those things. It just appeared, out of nowhere, and for almost a week I had to turn my entire body to look left like a lego woman.
  4. You’re expected to act like an adult – All of a sudden, I’m expected to have my shit together, since when did it become not okay to just buy more underwear because I don’t want to do laundry? If I’m an adult I should be able to do that if I wanted to… and I want to.
  5. You stop getting presents – After 25, presents stop, dinner and drinks become your present. When did dinner=present? (Yes, it is possible that I just have shitty friends, I’ve considered that possibility)
  6. You have the mental desire to party like a 21 year old, but the physical ability to party like a 50 year old – My brain says I can still party till 5am, my body says you can have 3 drinks and take a nap. So instead, you do…..
  7. Birthday dinners – They are the worst. There are so many reasons why they’re the worst, it probably deserves its own blog post with its own dedicated list. Due to the sad fact that everyone is either married, have babies, or are in committed relationships, people don’t party anymore, and so comes the dreaded Birthday Dinner.  I refuse to have them, yet still obliged to go to them because I like having friends.