Today is my 32nd birthday. In the past, my birthdays have been all about the celebration, the parties. From cake and presents with family and grade school friends when I was young to shots lined up on the bar in my early twenties, my birthday was always cause for an epic party. 

As I've gotten older, and collected more years in sobriety, the parties have become less important. Birthdays have become a time to cherish friends and family, to have some much needed fun, to recharge. In the past few years I've celebrated with an Escape Room excursion, a trip to the mountains with my husband for a week of hiking, and low key gatherings at my house or a friend's. 

Birthdays have also become a time for reflection - to survey the happenings of the past year and imagine what the next year could bring. Two years ago, when I turned 30, I was particularly reflective. Not for the typical reasons. I wasn't afraid to turn 30. I wasn't reflecting on whether I was living the life I'd planned on living by the time I was 30 like many do on this milestone birthday. Over and over on my 30th birthday the thought that crowded out all others was that I so lucky to be alive. There was a time, not so long before, when I didn't think I'd live until 30. But I'd made it, and the gratitude that flooded me on my 30th birthday was intense.

For quite a bit of my life I haven't wanted to be alive. I started struggling with depression and suicidal ideation when I was pretty young, like nine or ten. Of course, I didn't know at the time that this was mental illness, I just knew that I felt like I didn't fit in, like I didn't belong, like no one would care if I just didn't exist. For the first couple of years battling with mental illness I didn't actively want to kill myself; I couldn't wrap my head around the concept of taking my life with my own actions. But by the time I was twelve I had made a plan for taking my own life, and right before my 13th birthday I put that plan into action.

Obviously it didn't work. To be honest, I wasn't really trying that hard. I wanted the emotional pain I was feeling to end, I wanted to stop existing, I wanted people to see how much pain I was in, but I didn't really want to die. 

Though the suicidal ideation didn't cease after my feeble suicide attempt, my desire to actually take my life did. I saw the pain that my suicide attempt had caused my family and I knew I couldn't do that to them again.

So, I taught myself to take different actions when the suicidal thoughts took over my brain. I started drinking and doing drugs. I started cutting myself. In hindsight, I was really trying to passively kill myself. I knew that I couldn't follow through with purposely causing my own death, but I did think it would be okay if I accidentally died. There was a part of me that hoped I would cut a little too deep on the next slice, or that I'd discover the right combination of liquor and drugs that would allow me to drift peacefully from this world. 

Soon, my depression and suicidal ideation weren't the only demons haunting me. Addiction became my primary mental illness within a few years of picking up my first drink. By the time I was in high school I was drinking and using drugs at any opportunity. And I never used them moderately, just for fun. I used them for oblivion. I used them to escape the voices in my head. I used them to come as close to death as I could.

By my freshman year of college, most of my life revolved around getting my next drink or drug. It didn't look that way. I maintained a work study. I went to the majority of my classes. I was still getting good grades. But I was doing all these things in the service of maintaining a facade, a facade that allowed me to justify my drinking. I'm generally a good girl and I work really hard, so I deserve to party as hard as I want. I deserve oblivion because life is just too exhausting.

This continued into my early twenties, escalating each year, especially after my 21st when I could finally get my hands on as much alcohol as I could possibly consume. In those blurry years, I remember thinking that maybe I would be lucky and I wouldn't live until I was 30. I remember thinking that if I did make it to 30, then I would probably have to stop living the way I was living, but I had until then to live as hard as I could.

Lucky for me, the universe decided that I, in fact, would not make it that long living the way I was living. Whatever Higher Power is constantly looking out for me decided that 23 was the time for me to get sober. 

For me, the worst part about getting sober was that my brain, my thought processes didn't really change for a long time. So, I was left with the same brain I'd always had and nothing to shut it up. I was left with my depression, suicidal ideation, and cravings, and there was nothing I could do but endure it all. Fortunately, I discovered a program of recovery that allowed me to change the way I interacted with my brain, that taught me how to endure the mental illnesses I'd struggled with for most of my life.

And year by year, my life changed.

I remember so clearly that first birthday after I got sober - 24. I didn't know what people did for their birthdays when they weren't drinking. Where could you have a birthday party that wasn't a bar? How could you create fun if there weren't any substances?

A friend joked that we should just go to the local arcade, and for some reason I got obsessed with this idea. I invited all of my friends to the arcade, and we showed up 15 people deep. I'm pretty sure the arcade staff had heart attacks and honestly, I don't blame them. We were loud, we were obnoxious, we won a giant cartoon pig and took turns riding it around the arcade property. We were insufferable, but we had the best time. And we were all sober. 

That 24th birthday party started a trend for me - throwing wild, silly birthday parties at offbeat locales. The next year my birthday party consisted of Black Tie Bowling and a movie. Everyone was required to wear prom attire to the bowling alley. The formal attire wasn't required for the movie afterward, but it most certainly was required for bowling. I am blessed with friends who are always willing to be wacky. One of them showed up in a tux with actual tails. Another showed up in her actual prom dress from high school. We bowled our hearts out, changed in our cars, and saw the first Avengers movie. 

These birthdays taught me how to have fun, real wholesome fun. I'd always thought my pre-sobriety birthdays were fun, but to be honest, they were just messy. My post-sobriety parties were full of laughter and actual joy. There were many more ridiculous theme parties in the years between 25 and 30, each one as fun as the last.

So, when 30 rolled around I was able to reflect on years of joy. And I realized then that those years of joy were years I might not have had. There were so many times throughout my life that I could have died. All the nights where I mixed alcohol with multiple varieties of drugs. All the nights I