r/sadposting

RIP Hayden Panettiere!

August 18, 2026

That's how old I'll be tomorrow. I've always looked forward to celebrating my birthday, and I still do. But this year, it feels a little different.

Usually, I have the full day on my birthday to have fun and engage in whatever celebration my family arranges for me. I'm forever grateful to them for all of that. But tomorrow, I'm not going to be free all day, because I have a shift at work that I accepted a couple weeks ago. My shift goes from 4 to 9 PM, so I will have the entire morning and first half of the afternoon to have some fun, but in the end, it still won't be the full day.

I'm sure if I wanted to, I could just call out of work tomorrow and give myself the entire day. But even if my co-workers and boss understood and let me have the day off, I still can't bring myself to call in because of how starved I've been this month for paychecks. Furthermore, I can't seem to shake off some somewhat minor-but-annoying unwanted thoughts from my head, but that's a whole other discussion I'd rather not share (not right now at least).

However, there is something I will admit. I know countless others that are my age or around it have made these kinds of statements before (even if not word-for-word), but I have so many mixed emotions about being a year older, and the most dominating ones are sorrow and nostalgia. I'm not necessarily saying I "regret" being somewhat eager to grow up when I was younger, like the rest of us, but at the same time, I have no idea how else to put it. I graduated college three months ago, and I've had a great summer, mixed with working, enjoying the typical summer activities, and spending time with friends and family.

But over these past few months, I never talked much to my family about what I wanted to do for my birthday. I told them to just surprise me with whatever kind of celebration they could come up with, and I would just see where it went from there. And now that my big day has creeped up, I'm starting to feel upset that I won't have the full day to have all the fun I want. I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I just can't seem to bring myself as much joy out of so many great things I have, as they did when I was younger.

I guess I just don't want to keep growing up. Not because I don't believe I can amount to anything, but because, in one way or another...I don't want to. To put in hard work at a real job, to get out of my own comfort zone, or even following my dreams of achieving notability in this life, feels like I have to give up so much of myself to the point where I can't enjoy the good things if they're not going to be around forever. I often wonder how much happier I'd be if I never had to prove anything to anyone, knowing that I wouldn't have to waste so much time pleasing others when I would rather enjoy loving myself. While it's not my intention to come off as selfish by saying that, I can't find any words that would make it sound non-selfish.

Bottom line, I miss being a kid. I crave to spend the rest of my days having fun with my inner child and being able to enjoy the things that make me feel good without thinking of others' perspectives of being afraid of judgement. Feeling these emotions and having these thoughts at such a time when I'm meant to look forward to celebration feels so unique to me, even though I'm not the only person in existence to experience it.

Even wrapping up this post, it feels like there's so much more I could say. If there's anything selfless about this message, I want it to be that anyone else that shares these same feelings and thoughts know that they are not alone. Bottling them up will only make you feel worse. I know it sounds cliche, but it's true. Whether you openly admit it or not, deep down, you know that every last one of us has these experiences, and there is nothing wrong with that. It shows how connected we are, and how much we mean to each other.

I'm still kinda struggling to lift up my own spirits, so if anyone would like to chip in with their own feedback, I'd like that a lot.

Thank you so much.