Cliche birthday musings

So I tried to make the most of today despite the incessant crappy weather. Ducked out when the rain stopped momentarily but had bad luck with the bus which came rather late. That was the least of my troubles though; when I arrived at Central Station, the rain was coming down steadily and I had no idea what to do - ended up using my denim jacket to shield my head as I walked to the nearest mall to find an umbrella to buy. Half an hour of visiting different shops and deliberating based on price and design, I finally got myself an adorable emo-kitty umbrella :P Most practical birthday gift I've ever gotten myself I must say. It was still a pretty miserable looking day, but at least I was dry-ish on my walk to Cafe Ofre Slotts, my favourite lunch cafe in Uppsala. Had a quiet lunch there by myself and was touched/entertained by videos and photographs that the teammates sent to me from Singapore of them celebrating mine and Xinmei's birthday :') An extremely coincidental/amusing affair was that the boy was at the very same restaurant that they were at - Fika, a Swedish place. It was so heartwarming to know that my loved ones were thinking of me, especially on what was supposed to be a "special day". In the evening, I took an incredibly chilly 15 mins walk (my denim jacket was still wet and could not be worn) to Vox Publicum, a book cafe that I recently discovered, and ordered a cup of vanilla tea. As I was settling in, an adorable Swedish girl invited me to join her at watercolour painting and I was pleasantly surprised. I did eventually join her and a couple of her friends, not to paint because God knows, I'm hardly the artsy kind at all; but I still had a lovely chat with them before heading home.

So I guess though things didn't exactly go my way, they worked out in the end. Birthdays seem to demand for some kind of reflection on personal growth or the like. But I don't know, I think we're all works in progress. You don't just wake up one day, a year older and feel as if something has changed intrinsically. In many ways, I'm no less lost than the 18 year old version of myself, but I think I'm okay with that. In our wanderings we often discover so many new and exciting things, it may be a blessing to be able to wander. I guess my birthday "reflection" is that I'm endlessly grateful to be surrounded by love and support; I'm still on my way to figuring things out, and I'm not too terribly worried about the end right now.