21

My 21st birthday is creeping up, this Friday, and I’ve never been this excited for a birthday. This is the “fun birthday”, photos are posted, iconic memories are supposed to be made on fun trips with friends or goofing off at bars because you can now legally consume an alcoholic drink waiting to greet you with little umbrella sitting inside the cup. All I can think about is if my flare will last through my birthday, if it’ll be better by then, worse, or if I’ll do too much on my birthday and make the flare worse, prolonging horrid symptoms for even longer. I should be thinking about cake, what I’ll decide to have as my first drink, about friends, about having fun. Instead I’m trying to debate on one drink alone so I don’t get too sick, and needing to block schedule out my entire day, trying to make enough time for things and time for rest in between, trying to put together an emergency pain kit since I’ll be hours from home and am certain I’ll flare. I’m fearing that this new year will turn over a worsening year in my health again, just like the last few. I’m about to be 21 years old, and haven’t ever experienced more existential dread.