In two hours I will officially start my 34th year. This is the first quarantine birthday, and to be honest, I am not all that excited about it. Last year I was able to celebrate just before the whole world shutdown. This year I will be lucky to see a couple of friends and be out of my house for a few hours.

I shouldn’t complain though. On the 5th of March I received my first dose of the Covid19 vaccine. I feel like this is a promising start to end of a very difficult year. I got the Oxford AstraZenica dose, and I have to say, I am really disappointed that mine did not contain a Bill Gates’ microchip. I was really hoping that I was about to get a whole lot smarter. By 2am though, I thought that maybe I had been bitten by a radioactive spider and my life was about to change. I developed a fever, chills, a crazy headache and my whole body hurt. My arm is swollen and tender, but now, at 10 pm, the headache, chills and fever are gone, but my body still aches. I’m not sure if all of this is due to the vaccine, or if some of it is because I had to go off my pain meds to be able to get the jab. The achy body could be from that. All in all though, I am glad I was able to get vaccinated, and I am just hoping that the next dose is also on a Friday so I have the weekend to stay in bed and binge watch drag queens.

I’m not really sure why I am not more excited for my birthday. 33 had some good moments. I got my PhD. I got adopted. I got published as a first author, I paid down a nice chunk of my student loan, I reconnected with some old friends and made a few new ones. Those first two were really important to me. Finally being done with the PhD and not having that stress hanging over me has been nice. Having that PhD published as Davis and not Wilder is the ultimate cherry on top of that sundae. I finally got to ditch that name and the horrible people that I am unfortunately related to by blood.

I hope that this year means I finally get a chance to travel, to hug people, to do all the things I thought I was going to be able to do in my 33rd year. Whilst I am not super excited about tomorrow, I am hoping that there will be some good things to come. I have a lot of professional things in the works, some publications, professional development events, and some university wide trainings, and I am hoping that there will be some good personal things happening as well. This is the first time in almost 10 years that I haven’t gotten a tattoo for my birthday, but I remain hopeful that tattoo shops will be opened again and that the waitlist won’t a full year for my favorite artist. I also plan to visit at least three new countries. I will probably have to sneak in like some little gypsy souled ninja, but I am going to make it happen.

and maybe, just maybe, I’ll finally get my UK driving license.