Today wasn't the ideal day for Happy Birthday.
I have often looked forward to this day. Although I am not one to put much stock in days and often discard the significance of my birthday, I have not found my teenage years to be especially enjoyable and so, in spite of my general attitude, I have looked forward to turning twenty and no longer being a teenager. Of course, I always thought this would be a good day, mixed with a bit of relief. How wrong was I!

I can't help but find some grim amusement in the actions of yesterday - not only was I moving on to a new chapter in my life literally as well as in some socially constructed sense, the day's confusion and emotional and physical pain seemed to work as a fitting summary of my teenage years. I certainly hope today does not to be particularly indicative of much, though! It has not exactly been the ideal day, let alone birthday. My mother stayed in hospital the entire day and the doctors are still unsure of what's wrong with her, though she says she feels much better now and is hoping to be discharged tomorrow. I, however, have had medical concerns of my own that I may discuss at a later date, and spent my afternoon not at a birthday party but at the doctor's clinic. Yeah, I'm sure that's what everyone wants to do for their 20th.

I then had a whole bunch of other stuff to do and ultimately couldn't go up to Brisbane to see my mother, which was upsetting and unpleasant. It is my first birthday without my mother and I certainly hope it is my last for many, many years to come. I didn't even get to meet up with any friends, just a few family members. Blah, not a day to remember positively, though I did book my flight to Melbourne. I'll be rocking up there early on Saturday morning. It will be interesting how things go from there. I do hope my furniture arrives on that day rather than Sunday! But I have to go down on Saturday as my presence is required at the real estate agent's office that day and the university on Monday. Things will get interesting if my furniture won't be delivered until Sunday, heh, but I'm sure I'll be able to work around that somehow. I just hope my mother will be heal;thy enough to travel down with me, or at least join me soon after.

I think that's all the news for now. Things thankfully are not as dire as they were last night. There is surely little more unpleasant than farewelling your mother when she is lying on a bed in the corridor of a frantically busy Accident and Emergency ward, hooked up to all kinds of machines. Especially when the guy on the next bed in the corridor has been brought in by helicopter and his machines show barely any pulse at all, and other patients in varying degrees of distress are being wheeled by constantly. What a thoroughly dismal place to be.

Stay healthy, folks.