Possibly one of my favorite times during the year, aside from Jolly Ole St. Nicholas coming down the chimney and decorating gingerbread houses, is when I am able to celebrate the day that I was welcomed to this world. That’s right, the one day a year that I am able to eat cake and make wishes that for the last couple of years have focused on winning the lottery to pay for student loans.

Yet, eating enough sweets to cause cavities and trying to blow out those trickster candles (the ones that “don’t go out,” if you catch my drift) have not been the only reasons why I love this time of year.

However, I also once despised it.

In elementary school, this feeling persisted the most. While children of all ages ran with excitement to their friends to come join the party they would be having after school, I, being someone who was a little bit more introverted and didn’t have as much time to make connections due to moving quite a bit during my younger years, was sometimes left behind. Or, when parents would come in with cupcakes and hold a birthday party, the only feeling I could describe was something similar to a happy-sadness.

Happy that my classmate was having a great time; sadness because I would not really have what they were experiencing.

Although summer time was filled with the possibility of doing so many things, like day-long extravaganzas or small rendezvous with friends, that also was a time for vacations, lazy days and day trips out-of-town. Needless to say, sometimes people that were invited couldn't make it.

In middle school, birthdays during the summer got a little better. I was making friends, on my birthday, would sit together for hours and gossip about the latest trends, clothes, and anything to do with boys. However, as emotions and hormones would arise at any moment, sometimes the party was cut short by silly remarks I, or another person, had made.

As I entered high school, because I knew only three people from middle school who also attended with me, inviting people over for that one day had fallen short. This was a pattern for two years.

Until, on one fateful day while looking at my family make preparations and call me into the kitchen to blow out the candles, I fully realized how ungrateful I had been. My family, who had always tried their hardest to provide for me and my brother, had always been there. Each birthday, from the moment I was able to stick chubby little fingers into my first cake, they were there to celebrate with me. For some, this realization is not a reality.

After this thought ingrained itself into my mind, I took on my birthday with a new light. Although I do not have the mass singing to me or a party with cupcakes, what matters most is that I have people who cherish me for who I am and that I am blessed to have lived another year on this earth. For that reason, I love birthdays because I have been able to spend another year with the ones who mean the most to me.

As for wishes I tend to make, I have a confession. Although I say they fully go to paying any accumulated tuition bills over the years, I put my faith into those little candles to make sure that my family, for years to come, will always find happiness.