35 sleeps to go

My mother and my auntie raised a very semi-important topic today.
My birthday.
They asked if I had plans, if there was anything I wanted to do, and my mother informed me that once again, she will not be around on that day.
To answer the questions - Do I have have plans? Is there anything I want to do? The answer being no, I do not have plans and yes, there is something I would like to do.
With everything that is going on in my life at the moment (filming, camps, voice recording for a video game, planning the perfect night for my friends on the 6th of august) I have had hardly any time to think of how I should celebrate the 17th anniversary of the day I was born.
Should I spend it with heaps of friends, being showered with love and gifts, feeling like I am the most important thing in the world?
Well I am not the most important thing in the world, so there goes that part.
As for the rest? Well every year it has been the same, I am showered with gifts, spending time with friends and family (that part I adore), and having some sort of get together. All of which is rather nice, but at some point on that day, I will cry.
Until last year, the reason as to why I would cry were negative.
Last year was by far the best birthday I have had so far. For once I had everything I wanted. When I say everything I wanted, I don't mean gifts, money, blah blah blah... No. When I say everything I wanted I mean I was surrounded by people who loved and cared about me.
I was happy, content with where I was in life, and for those who knew (and there only a few) what I was going through at that time, this was a very big deal for me. I did end up crying at some point, but they were tears of joy.
One of the things that made last year the greatest, I believe, was the fact I had no high expectations what so ever about that day. I didn't care if had a tonne of presents given to me, if I had cake, or if my friends embarressed me infront the class by screaming out "IT'S RACHEL'S BIRTHDAY" followed by a very out of tune, out of time happy birthday song. I started the day with the expectation of being dissapointed yet again. But I wasn't.
I got everything I wanted.