A single otaku gifts herself 'time with her favorite' for her birthday.

"I don't really know what I'm supposed to do for my birthday now that I'm an adult."
I wonder when it was that I started feeling that way.

In four days, I will turn 34.
I'm single and live alone, and at this age, I don't bother making plans with friends anymore.
I don't buy myself cakes or presents.
I don't receive birthday messages from anyone other than my family.
From the outside, I suppose it looks like a lonely birthday.

The '34-year-old' I imagined back in my 20s was much more glamorous.
I thought I'd be a 'self-reliant adult woman' living in a 2LDK apartment, with furniture from Francfranc, living with a cute cat, being great at my job, and wearing lovely earrings...

But as for the real me.
I live in a cramped 1K apartment, my furniture is still from Nitori, and I'm not exactly great at my job.
I did manage to live with a cute cat, but I'm still just an otaku who thinks of nothing but her favorite.

It was a future far removed from the ideal of an 'adult woman'.
But if you asked me if every day is painful, that's not the case at all.

After all, the fact that I'm still an otaku at 34 means that I've found a hobby I can be that passionate about in my life.

So, for my birthday this year, I decided to gift myself 'time with my favorite'.
I was able to get a ticket to a stage play my favorite is appearing in on my actual birthday.
My lonely birthday for one has turned into a 'special day spent with my favorite'.

Perhaps there are people who would laugh and say, 'You're doing that on your birthday of all days?'
But to me, my favorite is someone important.
Even if they aren't family or a lover, I think it's no different from 'spending time with someone important'.

Besides.
Now that I'm 34, I've come to realize that 'there probably isn't anyone whose life is perfectly fulfilled in every aspect'.
People with children say, 'I have no time for myself,' people with families say, 'It must be nice to be free,' and single people say, 'It's lonely being alone.'

Everyone is doing their best in their own lives, moving back and forth between satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

My 34th birthday.
No one is celebrating it, and I'm not buying myself anything special.
But the fact that I can now think, 'I am happy with who I am right now,' might be quite a bit of progress.

So that I can tell myself on next year's birthday, 'I'm enjoying life right now'.
So that I can laugh and say, 'I survived thanks to my favorite'.
I hope I can walk my own life while always cherishing the things I 'love'.

To you, who are reading this article.
I think that being able to 'be yourself' is much harder and much more important than 'becoming someone'.

To you, who aren't doing anything special for your birthday this year.
Let's live together, loosely, just as you are.

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