i told my parents i hated carrot cake a long time ago

so naturally every single year that's exactly what they'd get me

because "it has carrots so it's healthier"

i fucking hate carrot cake

ice cream cake is my favorite

i got really sad after talking about it

but then someone said "your parents are roald dahl villains" and that made me feel better

i wanted to cry

it's so silly but

birthdays have always been... rough for me

from my birthdays as a kid when only like one person would show up

to my 21st birthday where i just got shitfaced at a bar alone because the bartender felt bad for me and gave me free drinks all night, and all i did was post to mastodon the whole time

til my first birthday in seattle in 2020 which was my first actual good one

my 21st birthday i considered especially tragic because

well

the person i was in like high school

partying and shit all the time

i always looked forward to my first day of legal drinking as like

THE BIG ONE

THE BIG DAY

THE ONE I'VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO FOR LIKE SIX YEARS

but then my parents forced me to move away for college and i never met anyone in the new city...

so there was nobody to invite to my party

but i'm over it lol

i've had enough good birthdays since then to more than make up for it

okay

i will say

there were a few people i did TRY to invite

my cousin being the main one

but i also spammed people from my old city with invites to the facebook event even tho they were two hours away

just on the off chance one might come? such a silly thing to hope for, nobody would wanna drive two hours to see some person they hadn't talked to in three years

but i did it anyway just in case

i'm finally over the past

over what i lost when i moved away from the city i went to high school in

over those all those years i spent alone and sad

because i finally have something again, something better, i'm making a life for myself

once again, and yet really -- for the very first time

like

i'm finally the person i wanna be

and that's worth more than anything else

why the fuck was i still using the cake emojis lmao

if i could go back and do it all differently, like stop myself from moving

i wouldn't

because it was this exact sequence of events that led me to being the person i am today

i'm happy as me today

i mean, sure, there's been lots of suffering along the way

but if i had stayed in that city after graduating, my transition would've been totally different

it might've taken way longer for me to realize i was trans, or i might've never figured it out