a toast to birthdays

Here's to being fifteen and really not knowing. Here's to staying up late listening to music and not caring if you're becoming nocturnal. Here's to all the things you never got to do and here's to all the things you did that you said you'd never do. Here's to great ideas at the eleventh hour. Here's to those awkward yet compulsively interesting conversations. Here's to all the words you crossed out and here's to all the ones that replaced them. Here's to all the quizzes you failed and all the ones you unexpectedly aced. Here's to all the things you wish you had said. Here's to feeling embarrassed and awkward and out of place. Here's to happy endings. Here's to cursing like a sailor when no one can hear you. Here's to high fives and fist bumps. Here's to all your insecurities - all your stupid, universal, exaggerated insecurities. Here's to all the books you read and all the places you wished you could be. Here's to all the times you wanted to scream at someone but kept your mouth shut. Here's to midnight IMs and drinking tea at six in the morning. Here's to standing off to the side, pretending to text as you look for your friends in the crowd. Here's to feeling independent - riding the bus alone and getting coffee and making decisions. Here's to eye contact that makes you want to explode. Here's to lists scribbled on the margins of chemistry notes, on sticky notes, on the back of hands. Here's to laughing so hard you fall on the ground. Here's to scoring a goal in your soccer game for the first time. Here's to all those weird dreams about people you've never met and people who don't exist. Here's to those leaps of faith that make your heart race. Here's to being the girl who perpetually stares out windows. Here's to making faces at people across the room, behind their back, in front of the photobooth. Here's to mental breakdowns and slowly concocting their remedies. Here's to finding new things to care about. Here's to those nights riding home when the air is brisk and cool and you stick your hand out the window just to take it all in. Here's to terrible singing to terrible songs. Here's to dirty jokes and awful puns and laughing at things that aren't even funny. Here's to sitting on your front porch, barefoot, watching the sunset. Here's to being nostalgic about a childhood that wasn't even that long ago. Here's to leap days and holidays and every day. Here's to throwing pity parties because you weren't invited to real parties. Here's to songs that know exactly how you feel. Here's to arguing about stupid things that seem so important at the time. Here's to all the pictures we took and all the pictures we would have taken if we'd remembered to change the batteries the night before. Here's to acting like you're five half the time and 85 the other half. Here's to all the junk food you ate - zebra cakes and milkshakes and cookie dough and everything else. Here's to perfecting the art of being an angsty teenager. Here's to when you realize it's 12:12 AM on a school night. Here's to all the time spent waiting, for things to start, for things to stop, for things to just be different. Here's to sitting in the front row of the theatre. Here's to all those hours spent in bed watching Netflix. Here's to depressing winters and depressing Tuesdays. Here's to learning how to drive. Here's to traveling to places for the first time. Here's to overly emotional journal entries. Here's to being both happy and sad. Here's to you.

Here's to sixteen.