Outside of gaining an extra hour of birthday thanks to my East Coast birth and my interpretation of how time zones work, having my first birthday outside of Eastern Standard Time (hell, outside of North Carolina) in Texas doesn’t seem like anything worth noting.

Yes, friends have been forced to video chat in hugs that used to be across the hall, campus or state, but outside of that there shouldn’t be remarkable about a man turning 26 in South Texas.

Except there is.

I have, in the past six months, gained such an amazing array of friends in this region that I couldn’t be happier with.

I have neighbors that somehow knew I would be celebrating at 11 p.m. CST Thursday who decorated my door and brought over cake, (That’s right. By 11:05 p.m. I was already sitting down to cake.) a friend who serenaded me in Spanish, another friend who made me feel like the most popular girl in a Miami high school by having doughnuts and balloons on my desk, another friend who is willing to host a party at her house for me and enough other friends to have consumed so much sugar today that I feel like a detox is needed before I even begin drinking.

Add to this the fact that I already had the greatest set of friends in the world before I even left the land of the pine and I’m almost convinced that I’m someone worth celebrating.

It’s crazy to have come from an almost apprehension and hatred for my birthday just five years ago to wearing a tiara all day and making ridiculous rules (No speaking Spanish, Casual Friday is canceled, et al) just because I think it’s fun.

Outside of all of that, however, there’s one more thing worth celebrating: My birthday is a Friday, meaning that five years after that glorious, life-changing birthday I can now listen to this song and sing the lyrics as loudly as I’d like.