Celebrate Good Times

So I turned 23 years old this week.

The month of September is FULL of birthdays. I am not kidding. I'm pretty sure that by the time I am in the later stages of my life, I will probably be able to match a person with a birthday in September for each day of that month.

Mine was this past Monday on the 18th. I didn't do much that day because it was a typical Monday, but that weekend before I definitely celebrated a little bit.

My sister and I traveled to Houston together to watch her school play against my alma mater in football. TCU vs. UH. I already knew who was going to win deep down, but I still had hope for my school. Unfortunately, that hope was not enough. TCU completely destroyed UH.

After that we went to one of my fraternity's parties that they happened to be hosting that same night. In one day, my sister was able to experience my school's football culture and the Greek party environment and I believe she loved every second of it. That whole day was truly a birthday present in it of itself.

Then that next day after we traveled back home to Dallas, I went out to eat with two of my childhood friends. That was another wonderful present and way to celebrate my birthday. Also, all of our birthdays are in the same week, so this way we could celebrate each other.

Then on my actual birthday, I received a lot of birthday wishes from friends and family through phone calls and social media. The love was definitely felt and very much appreciated! And to finish off my birthday festivities, the next day I bought one of my favorite movies of 2023 on Blu-Ray, Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse.

I guess you could say I enjoyed myself this year.

Last year, I didn't do anything at all to celebrate myself on my birthday and I was secretly miserable. I knew I wanted that to change moving forward. I didn't want to be miserable on my birthday. That is when I decided that every year I would try to do something even if it wasn't much.

This year was definitely a start and even though it wasn't some extravagant party or anything, I still had a great time on my birthday. I was really excited to turn 23 and I definitely felt loved and appreciated by my community.

This birthday taught me that celebrating myself can come in any way, shape, or form. As long as I am happy and enjoying myself. I didn't have a party but there was one for me to enjoy. I didn't really have a huge plan, but there was one that presented itself to me when my sister invited me to Houston.

Sometimes we don't have to have everything together and that's okay. And I feel like that is going to be the theme of my 23rd year of life. During 2023 I have already been grasping on to the concept of trusting in God with where I am in life. Although, it hasn't been easy doing so, I am learning that the more I try to control things that I can't, the more stressed I feel.

Becoming okay with the unknown and trusting that God has my life in his hands will be something I will continue to remind myself moving forward. And along the way I am going to keep finding ways to enjoy the ride and celebrate myself.

I hope you readers do the same with yourselves. Life can be stressful sometimes and we often wish that we could just make everything perfect in our own way, but if we could do that then we wouldn't need faith in God.

I hope that you all can find ways to enjoy life and celebrate yourself. If you have a birthday coming up, don't just brush it off of your shoulders. That's a big deal! You've made it through another year of life. Celebrate because of that.

Until the next post.

Jefferson K. Coe