My birthday is in a couple of days, and this year I didn’t make any plans to celebrate. All I know is that I’m working that day, but in terms of going out and partying, that’s not going to happen this year.

First off, planning anything is exhausting. There’s the matter of who to invite, where to go, what day and time, what to wear, yada, yada, yada. Actually, scratch that, it’s not exhausting; it’s flat out annoying. And, I have to say, now that I’ve finished college, it’s even harder for me to maintain some semblance of a social life. Whenever I attempt to make plans with friends whom I haven’t seen in a long time, the plans seem to fizzle out somewhere between, “I miss you! Let’s hang out soon!” and “So when are you free? Oh, no, that day doesn’t work for me. Maybe Saturday?” Nope.

Secondly, I can say with confidence that I’ve officially reached an age where I honestly don’t care so much about my birthday anymore. Maybe that sounds a little cynical (hey, I’m not denying it), but what I mean to say is that I don’t feel the need to have such an extravagant celebration and go out and get wasted on my birthday. I’d honestly be perfectly happy celebrating in a much simpler way from now on, like going out to dinner.

Of course, when I was younger, I had my fair share of craft parties, pizza parties and the like. As I got a little older and moved into those oh so wonderful years of tweenhood, it was all about the sleepovers. And then, of course, jumping ahead to my 21st birthday, I celebrated it rightfully so, drunkenly, at a club with a bunch of my friends, which consisted of a few good friends from high school, a nice big group of my sorority sisters and even my two cousins who drove a long way to celebrate with me. I danced all night and didn’t pay for a single drink. Needless to say, it was quite awesome.

In sharp contrast to that, last year, I went to Benihana with my family, and I had a nice time. The chefs cook your meals right in front of you there. It’s fun to watch. Incidentally, there were literally (okay, maybe not literally) six other people celebrating their birthdays that night.

But now, this year, I said to hell with birthday party planning. I’m going to go to work and go about my day as though it were any other day, and then I’m going to go home and eat cake. There must always be cake.

-Ali