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So I turned twenty-two yesterday, it’s that time of the year again and I realised I’m not a birthday person at all. I jut can’t help it. I don’t like the attention, I don’t like the pressure to do something special, and it makes me feel like an arsehole because I look like I just don’t appreciate the fact that people think of me on that day and wish me a happy birthday.

But my birthday is still something I remember every year and it makes me realise how much and how little things change. Last year I still worked in retail and had just moved into the our Neukölln flat, I took the day off and got my nose pierced as a surprise present from my friends, ended up at my own a surprise house party, went out to a club and had a small breakdown over the fact that the year that had passed was pretty shit. The year before that I went out for dinner in Berlin, I still lived in Cologne and I decided to not stay with friends for a change but in a hostel on my own, at midnight the waiter brought a chocolate cake and I cried myself to sleep because you know, I just don’t like birthdays. In 2008 I was still a uni student and I celebrated in a club in Cologne I frequented at that time, got presents from friends & free shots from the bar and walked home in the morning. I turned 18 the year before somewhere on the motorway between Cologne and Berlin, we bought champagne at the gas station and the random strangers we were sharing a car with sang Happy Birthday for me.

This year I went out for a drink with friends and went to bed early, I bought cake for the office, made myself some nice dinner and watched random videos in my bed. It’s alright, I don’t mind getting old.