8. My Worst Birthday

Birthdays feel a little passe, now that I’m older.

On my birthday this year, I was working (it was a weekday) – although, I have to say that it was a fun assignment where I had to interview a street chef and try their food. Then my weekends were so taken up with part-time work and other stuff that I only managed to have a simple dinner with a close friend (and that was like a month later, so we could celebrate our birthdays together, lol).

My worst birthday was probably my 25th one. Apart from having a quarter-life crisis, I was also burning out from work, which required long (and odd) hours – working weekends, overtime, having very little time with family, etc. On my birthday, I was out early in the morning and only finished work at midnight. When I got home, my mom had waited up just to wish me, and she said “I hardly see you these days.” Which made me feel extremely guilty, so I quit my job, which caused a big row because it was a company with ‘good prospects’ (even though the reason I quit was because I wanted to spend more time with the fam).

Moving on to happier topics, my best birthday as I recall, was my 9th one which was also the only one I had which was a ‘proper’ party. It was held at the A&W in Taman Jaya, where I had a Sailormoon cake (was obsessed with the cartoons back then) and some classmates over. We played games with balloons and teased the A&W bear mascot by pulling its tail, and it got ‘angry’. I still have photos from that party somewhere!