Silence in an auditorium. A spotlight clanks open, a glowing circle lands on the stage. It's blinding my eyes, but I guess this is it. Becoming twenty. Start of a show. Beginning of a first act.

What now? I think to myself. Do I move my feet at all? Do I sing, belt out a chorus? Do I stay still, and simply speak? 

The light is still blinding. Murmurs from the audience. They're wondering about what I'll do. I'm wondering the same thing. The silence gradually returns. My first act begins with a lesson. 

Is it a lesson to make the right move? To successfully mesmerise a room full of audience? Or is it that there is no audience at all? That the only person looking – that matters – is me?

Seventeen was the year of brand new cars and drivers' licenses. The blinding disco lights of a birthday party. A girlhood era of high heels and makeup. Snapchat filters and high school romance. Immersing ourselves in the thrill of being young, fully embracing our moment of "I'm an adult but not quite yet."

Then eighteen was what I called an "important age". Stepping out of the carefree, party-filled teenage dream and into the age of major life decisions. What college? What career? Where do I go? What do I do? The classroom doors close. The friends say farewell. The kids embark and finally face reality.

Now when someone mentions nineteen, I picture a responsible, big girl with well-kept hair who makes everybody proud. Jeans that fit just right, soft, lavender curtains, and a clean, tidy dressing room. Adults love her, younger kids look up to her, she makes her own Christmas cards, and has her whole life figured out.

Needless to say, maybe, just maybe, 

I could've imagined something a little more realistic.

My birthday falls on the third day of June. Without even realising it, a week has already passed of me being eighteen. 

I always write a post regarding every birthday of mine (I'd written one for my 16th and 17th birthdays each). It still feels so silly yet heartwarming to look back on those two posts I did back then. Everything from how I presented my pictures to how I wrote; it's crazy how much can change within a person in the length of a year. And it feels daunting to be reading those posts and thinking, Man, I had no idea what was coming. In my seventeenth year that had ended, by God's grace, I've encountered some good achievements. Like graduating high school, and getting accepted into uni. Some achievements are more subtle, like learning self-acceptance.

But anyway, this year's birthday turned out to be quite... different. I didn't get to celebrate my birthday in any way. No dinner, no party. I didn't get to spend it with "loved ones", not even my family, I didn't get to spend it at home. All in all, it wasn't necessarily the best birthday I could ask for. But I guess I can still take what I can get. 

When the day arrived, I was still on my trip in Bali with a bunch of my friends, as part of our "farewell" week, I guess you can call it. It was a pretty cool trip and I'll be writing about it on my next few posts (stay tuned!), but if I'm being completely honest, I didn't fully enjoy the fact that my birthday was right in the middle of it. And no, I'm not whining because of the "loss of attention". But for someone who's leaving to study abroad next year, the ultimate thing I wanted for my birthday this year was to be in the comfort of my own hometown, and the family with whom I will soon part ways. But as it turned out, last week, I had neither of that.

There weren't any surprises waiting at the stroke of midnight. In fact, that midnight, most of the friends I was with were tipsy and red-faced drunk in a hotel room (ha-ha). As the sober introvert in the room, having my drunk friends slurring words of "happy birthday" to me at 1 AM wasn't exactly ideal. But I don't blame them, of course, and we still had fun. I won't talk about most of the things I'd seen that night, but long story short, I went to bed around 2:30 AM, and managed to wake up early in the morning. Being earlier than everyone else, I went down and swam in the hotel pool. Alone. And I didn't mind it. In fact, it was exactly what I needed. Enjoying several extra minutes all to myself helped me erase any disappointment and unwanted negativity away from my head. So for a start of the day (my birthday) which I spent far from home, and away from my family, a chance to breathe certainly helped calm me down.

Nobody knew how I felt about all this, but the rest of my birthday was pretty uneventful. My mom (who happened to be in Bali as well) stopped by my hotel, and I needed to hug her more than anything. My friends surprised me for a bit with some decorations and a hilariously ugly hotel cake before we checked out, and it was a mood booster of sorts, and the day went on as it should've. There wasn't a special dedicated Instagram post, and I didn't get that many birthday wishes compared to the years before. Regardless, I was still partly thankful that I made it this far.

Eighteen is an important age. At this age, I'll spend the first half of it living at home, still sitting quietly in my comfort zone, only bouncing between my internship and my side hustle as a photographer, and the next half I'll spend living in a city thousands of miles away far in Australia, starting off as a university student. I couldn't say much about my "goals" in this new age, because I'm still unsure of them, but I could try mentioning a few things I've learned of to this point.

I hope you liked reading this, somehow. And I may have a different tone now compared to my 16th and 17th birthday posts, but that's because I have changed dramatically. Not as much outside, but very much inside. And I am not sorry.

Thanks for sticking by.

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So, just a little update: I turned 17 last Friday. 

Do you feel old? 

Not really.

How does it feel like so far? 

Messy. 

So you drive now? 

Never laid hands on a steering wheel in my entire life. I know, I know, I suck at turning 17. 

Any wishes? 

Actually, on my birthday I realised, that everything I want, and everything I need, I already have. I'm abundantly blessed, and I know this full well.

Technically, this birthday post is about a week late, but I knew that not writing about my 17th birthday on my blog would be- well, a crime. So here it is.

The thing about turning 17 is that where I come from, it's a big deal. A lot of girls hold these extravagant parties and they just make one hell of a celebration out of it. (Kind of like how Super Sweet 16s are in the US). Judging from that, I thought that turning 17 would feel glorious. I thought my life would feel like it's ~*changed*~ and that the sun would shine in a different light and my days would be different and I would be a totally new person.

None of this happened.

The days leading up to my birthday were kind of dull. Maybe it was my finals week, but I knew that even though I was going to celebrate with a fun dinner gathering with my friends and I was going to see my family and it was going to be a great birthday, I still didn't look forward to it that much. I was happy, sure, but meh, it's just a birthday.

I woke up, June 3rd, at a quarter to 5 AM (yes, my birthday weekend featured many nights of a lack of sleep) and replied to several messages my friends left me from 12 AM the night before. My boyfriend texted me that morning and so did several other people.

I was just about to get up when all of a sudden, three of my closest church friends came into my room with a plate of the breakfast menu from McDonalds (a classy meal to start my birthday), complete with a set of candles, singing Happy Birthday to me, who wasn't even fully awake yet. It was the earliest birthday surprise I've had in a while and it was so thoughtful of them. 

My mom finally woke up an hour later, hugged me and wished me a happy birthday. Her gifts were really memorable: She wrote me a letter (which made me cry) and gave me a cross necklace (that I now wear daily and never take off).

After that, it was just a normal day (well, with countless people wishing me a happy birthday every time I pass by them at school). I usually would dress up for my birthday to look nicer but that day I only wore a plain white tee with black jeans and my pair of Converses. I know, right? Fashion.

We had two subjects only that Friday and the day at school basically ended with a friendly basketball game. My friends and I had a great time watching. Around noon, one of my best friends took me all the way to the first floor because she said she had something for me. Turns out, it was the most beautiful bouquet of flowers I've ever seen. (It's the one I'm holding in the first picture). I was so happy about it and I thought it was the most subtle, gorgeous, and unexpected gift.

Disclaimer: Beautiful typography above done by my cousin.

It was my birthday last Wednesday and I just realised that I haven't actually written about it in a blog post so here it is: Ta-daaa. Birthday post.

So on June 3rd, I turned 16, in which I suffered a slight case of emotional attachment issues (which involved me being attached to being 15.) A lot has happened in my 15th year as a grown individual. Here's the recap:

There are obviously also plenty of other things that came up among the time I was fifteen, but I guess that's all I could mention for now. Turning sixteen, obviously nothing has changed. My life is still pretty much going on at its progressive, rough, awkward phase. But I do feel the need to take responsibility over some things, and to start doing and looking at things differently. It's like a slight personality shift, like a brand new self-consciousness to just take it differently from here on out.

This year, my birthday went really nicely. I woke up in the morning, and I don't know if anyone else feels the same on their birthday morning, but I always feel that it's like Christmas morning except you don't want to look like you're too excited. (Is it just me?)

After waking up, I stepped outside my room and my mom hugged me and wished me a happy birthday, as usual, and so did my stepdad. After that, there was the long stream of messages and notifications coming from friends and relatives saying "happy birthday". Some of them had very long, sweet, thoughtful messages, some are actually pretty simple, but all of them really meant a lot to me. Ahh, very delighting.

I went to school that day to run some errands, and that's where one of my good friends, Jen, gave me this gorgeous bottle of moringa-scented body mist from the Body Shop. Have I been using it everyday now? Um, yes. It smells so good and it made me so happy. (Jen, if you're reading this, I love you.)

When I was home from school and chilling at home with my mom, my sister, and my baby nephew, one of my friends told me she was going to drop off a book she borrowed. I initially found that hard to believe but I went with it anyway. She asked me to come down and to come outside (which obviously left my senses tingling) and when I stepped outside my garage, all of my best friends were there forming this single row, singing Happy Birthday.

The whole thing was actually so thoughtful and sweet of them that I feel like it certainly made my life. They were holding a tray with some nice cronuts (croissant donuts, eh?) with candles poking out of it, and held letters forming my name. They yelled the letters one by one like cheerleaders and I have never felt so loved and special like how I felt in that moment.

And of course, after that, by the old tradition we have in our country, they showered me with eggs, soda, and other ingredients, leaving me cold and looking completely, completely pathetic. But hey,  those are just perks of being the birthday girl.

That night, my mom decided to take all of us out for dinner celebrating the special occasion. After a lot of consideration, we decided to go to the Shangri-La hotel, and eat dinner at Portofino, which is basically the Italian restaurant that they had in the Shangri-La.

It was such a stunning night. Not only was the food amazing (I got the Australian tenderloin steak  topped with BBQ sauce served with mashed potatoes and veggies on the side, and we also ordered margarita pizza which I didn't get to take a photo of, sadly) but it also felt really special because I had the whole family with me. That obviously meant a lot more to me than anything. 

My brother, who's still in college out of town, also managed to call and we got to have a little chat. He's coming home this Monday which I'm so thrilled about.

So overall, it was a very, very special birthday. I had so much fun and felt the love of those around me, and I am so incredibly blessed to have gotten the privilege to celebrate such a delightful birthday. I have a few plans for the time I'm 16, here are some that I can name:

And that's all for my super long birthday post! I hope you guys enjoyed reading about this and about how it all went. Overall, it was immensely special to me, and I thank God for the many things in my life right now, and also for the many things that are about to come.

Lastly, I hope you find that the life you're living now is a life that you're proud of, and if you find that it is not, I hope you find the courage to start over again.

From the girl who's now, apparently, sixteen,

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