Blood, Sweat and Cheers

Another deadline come and gone.

I guess the word 'deadline' is very fitting for what it connotates.
Because you are dead by the time you get to that line.

If I'm being honest (which I always am because I tell true stories), I really wasn't too excited about my birthday.
For a number of reasons:

1. I'm starting to get all self-conscious about my health. My lower back hurts. My gums feel funny. And my eyesight is so bad I might as well just use echolocation.

2. I can't sing Taylor Swift's 22 with an honest, soulful heart anymore.

3. I've gained weight. And this is how bad:
It was nice for this one day in April before winter came for the 18th time this spring, so I went to the pool to lay out, but it took me like 15 minutes just to find a swim suit that didn't make me look Wal-Mart.
And here's how bad it got.
You ready for this?
I actually contemplated getting a one piece.

WHAT?!?!?!
I KNOW!!!!

23 year old beach-babes DO NOT wear one pieces.

 I'm going to have to exercise. But GUESS WHAT. Even if you exercise, if you don't eat "right" "better" "organic" the results won't show and it won't matter so you'll stop doing it anyway.

Input doesn't equal output when input leads to a tasty, satisfying, glycemic comatose.
The 'Itis, as it were.

So not only do I have to exercise, but I have to diet, too? Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I just want to wear a bikini and not be a hypocrite.

4. Isn't 23 the age when everybody backpacks in Europe or goes sky diving in Malaysia? Before now "taking a year off to find myself" sounded completely stupid and irresponsible, but now I sometimes long for the freedom that college dropouts have.

So yeah... not too excited about being another year older...

I had approximately nine people tell me how ironic and fitting it was that my birthday was tax day and that I'm an accountant.
It was a brand new piece of news every time another person said it.
There were two SARs far away from each other and a chasm in the middle.

My BFF took me out to a nice dinner despite my worries about number 3, and then I wanted to watch the old-school 101 Dalmations, so we partied like it was 1995.

Me: Sam, you're so chunky that if you were a soup, you'd be chunky.
Mike: Sampbell's Chunky Soup

I really need to go on a roller coaster again.
It's like a reset button for life.

I'm a birthday candle in a circle of black girls,
TWS

All the Wine; The National