Oh you of little faith … happy birthday.

I can’t believe it’s officially been two years since I have started this blog. I have to change my blog’s name again. This is really dumb, I shouldn’t have named my blog after my age. I should’ve thought this through.

Anyways …

Every year on my birthday I get sad.

Since my 20s started, I spent two of my birthdays in Africa, one of which I threw up (from indigestion) and cried into a toilet, the other spent depressed because nobody thought in advance to send me anything.

On my 21st birthday I spent it in Vegas, but on the morning of got a voice message from my mom and cried cried cried.

This year, a few days before my birthday, I got into a small fender bender … and of course overreacted.

Now you have to understand that while yes, I tend to exaggerate, be unnecessarily loud and cry for no reason, there is a perfectly good explanation for why any matters related to my car strikes me to my core.

It is because I love my car.

That really is all that there is.

In such respects I am like a guy whose car is the best thing that he owns and cherishes. It’s to a point where everyday I fear that my car will get stolen. Every single day, whether I park my car in the same spot outside of my office, or on a street in front of a restaurant, or in my friend’s locked garage, I always expect my car to not be there when I come back out. It’s exhausting.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve realized that I have become utterly and completely faithless. Where once I had the faith of a mustard seed, now that seed is lost.

I don’t believe anymore. I’ve realized this tonight. I don’t believe. I’ve become an empty broken record. Speaking the words of what I used to preach, repeating wisdom from lessons I was taught long before but never learned. I realized that I don’t have any more faith, which is why every little thing that goes wrong tosses me violently like a plastic bag on a freeway.

And so I believe in my car; my car which cost me $1,600 because I had to replace all four tires and brake pads; my car which I reversed instead of driving forward and thus causing a ripple of abrasions and a centimeter deep dent in my back bumper, which had just been fixed less than a year ago; my car which has inexplicable key marks down my passenger side door and near my handle and dents on the hood.

Today, on my way to work I drove by four accidents. Four. With the last one, the accident was so bad, that the car was flipped over onto its side and burnt to a crisp black frame. That person died today.

While I aged one more year.

Days before my 23rd birthday, I wrote on my Facebook, “my life sucks. I fing crashed my car.” It’s so far from reality that it’s almost laughable. No, Sharon. Your life does not suck. You crashed your car and lived to see your 23rd birthday. That person crashed their car and died. Why do I keep insisting on putting all my faith and hope into something so extremely precarious?

Somebody searched on Google: “22 years old college graduate feels alone”  and that person was directed to my site.

Well, I don’t know if you’re reading this. But let me be the stranger to tell you that life can actually suck more than yours does now. And also to say that I’m no longer 22 years old.

Oh you of little faith, happy birthday.

Minidramas of a 22 year old

“It actually sounds sexy … and provocative,” Courtney says in reference to the new title of my blog: Minidramas of a twenty-TWO year old. 

Personally I think it sounds wack, but I’m warming up to it.

I spent the morning of my 22nd birthday at church! Christ The King Catholic Church to be exact. Though I was lost most of the time with the constant standing, sitting, standing, kneeling, I really enjoyed the sermon and the African drum-infused choir and communion where the priest hand-to-mouth feeds you the cracker. 

Frankie, our director of the program, bought me lunch (and kissed me on the cheek wishing me a very happy birthday).

The celebrations began with homemade Bloody Mary’s – Phil’s specialty. It was actually quite good considering the limited ingredients available in Ghana’s market. 

Then had fabulous dinner at a fabulous hotel and doubling up at the hotel’s casino, I say not bad for a 22nd birthday. =)

Day drunk? Nahh

The party people at the casinoooo

Thank you Queeney.<3

It’s my birthday … in Africa

David badongka: happy 24th birthday

Sharon: you’re one day and two years early.. but thanks. =)

It’s my birthday –  in Africa. I had unwittingly signed myself up for another birthday to be spent across the seas, a continent and a half away from my family and friends. I mean, one birthday spent in Africa is enough I think, no? I spent my 20th birthday completely and utterly depressed. It hit me during dinner. Though we were eating Korean food, a luxury my teammates and I looked forward to all week, I was so sad to be spending my birthday in Africa that I got indigestion and held in my throw-up for the entire, bumpy ride back to our base where I then proceeded to throw up, heaving and crying on the bathroom floor. 

I didn’t realize I had signed myself up for another African birthday until a few weeks after all the papers were signed and the travel expenses paid. 

… 

I skyped with my mom and my brother yesterday and when I reminded them that my birthday was coming up my mom said, “Oh, should I send you flowers?”  Remember that this is Africa where a post card would probably either take 3 weeks to get here or get “lost,” let alone a fresh bouquet of gerbera daisies. 

My mom scoffed. “Of course not through the mail! Through the chatbox!” 

She then proceeded to send me a blooming flower icon through our Skype chatbox. She also gave me beer, cake and a tiny tiny gift box carrying who knows what pixelated surprise inside. 

“Sharon, it’s six minutes to your birthday!” says Phil, my assistant director and housemate. 

It’s six minutes to my 22nd birthday. And I am in Africa.

Picture taken at midnight =)