Not-So-Birthday

Every July 18th is a tragedy.

When I turned fourteen, I celebrated my birthday with an ice cream cake and my father's friends. It wasn't all that bad, but between the melted cake and the awkwardness of turning down the beers I was offered, it didn't exactly make for the best day of the year.

For my fifteenth birthday, I spent the evening listening to Minecraft soundtrack playlists, crying over sad comments about how everyone's lives had fallen apart.

Last year, for that momentous sixteenth birthday... I don't remember a thing, to be honest. Let’s move on!

But while in other years I at least celebrated, I spent this seventeenth birthday brooding over my life choices and the mistakes I’ve made along the way. 

So now I’ll make another list: advice for my seventeen-year-old self from the me of previous years.

1. Do not open a Vinted package with scissors.

2. If you have twenty euros in your wallet, don't go straight to an all-you-can-eat place: save the money. You're broke.

3. The cookies stay in the oven for 15 minutes, the focaccias for 25. NOT the other way around.

4. Before speaking, form a complete sentence in your head.

5. If you cut your bangs obliquely, they’ll come out crooked.

6. With an army of cats around, creepers will never be able to explode on you again.

7. Going to a bridge while drunk is not a good idea.

8. Stay single.

Okay, that's all! Good luck, seventeen-year-old me!!! You're going to need it.