Happy Birthday to Me!

I turned 22 today! I am so very grateful for all the gifts that God has blessed me with this year and for giving me the gift of life. I’ve had many amazing experiences and people come into my life, I cannot believe how blessed I am sometimes.

I also want to thank all of those who donated to Malaria No More. There were a few people who donated to the Malaria No More website in my name, so I did raise my 200 dollars and may end up going over. We saved lives today, folks! Thank you for understanding my desire to donate and for respecting my birthday wishes!

One thing I learned today is how many different names I have. By noon on my facebook wall and twitter there was already quite a variety: Megan, Baby Girl, Megs, Meggy/Meggie, MC, Megaroo, Meggers, Carolin, best friend (ha, that was Sam). I find it so amusing, because each of these has a different meaning.

I’m enjoying a pretty quiet birthday today. I love birthdays, I think they are a wonderful day to celebrate a person and the people around them. I hope I never lose that passion, because I think so often people lose the importance of birthdays. For me, it’s not so much about “it’s MY day”, more about “I love all the people who are in my life”.

I will admit, and this may be selfish, that I love being the baby. Let me tell you, though, that no child in the Carolin family is spoiled, so it’s not that. I just love having people look out for me and care about me, having people that I can look up to. I’m the baby in my family, one of the youngest for my class, one of the youngest backups, and, throughout most of college, had a group of friends who were all older than me. Now that I’m 22 I’m not so sure I can be the baby anymore. I know that this next year I will be the mentor and role model for young people at Detroit Cristo Rey, taking care and looking out for others the way I have been looked after. I know that by looking at the examples I’ve been given in my life I will be perfect for this job, but I also know some days I’m just going to want to be the baby. Selfish? Maybe. Honest? Yes.

Someone asked me what the best birthday I ever had was. I’ve had some awesome birthday parties, including Chuck E Cheese, a hotel party, a kick butt water fight on my sweet sixteen, and many more. I’ve seen videos and pictures of birthdays from when I was little, but I think my absolute best birthday was my 19th birthday. I went out to dinner with some of the greatest friends that I will ever have in my life. They were all high school friends, some from my class and some from the year younger than me, but I was extremely close to a group of those girls. Plus, my best friends Alicia and Alex were there as well. I just remember laughing so much and sharing stories. Also, Alicia gave me the sweetest present that year- I opened up a HUGE package with a note on it that said “It’s not even my birthday and you’ve given ME the best present ever”- and then I opened it and there was this decorated mirror. There was a post-it note that said “YOU!” I mean really, how cute? I really miss those friends; I need to contact some of them. Anyways, the next day, I went up north with Jamie, Lindsay, and Sarah, as we did every year. It was an extended trip and we had a blast. My actual birthday fell during this week; I woke up to a decorated cabin and lots of cute birthday surprises.

Sending out lots of love and thanks to all those who wished me a Happy Birthday today- you made me smile! From texts, phone calls, facebook, twitter, to www.melindasbackups.com, you made it a wonderful day. Oh and to Melinda and Phil, I love you two, thank you for taking the time to wish me a happy birthday.

I think Sam and Chikezie have something up their sleeve, but I promised Sam I wouldn't read her tweet to Chikezie so I'm resisting the urge to peek. I'm also not getting my hopes up. :-)