party party party

Do you know, for some reason I have an irrational fear of the 21st birthday party. Not other people's, as a rule, but my own. I can't figure it out. It feels like it felt when I knew that someday, eventually, I would have to get my full driving license... which I got, with very little pain, in the end. I think it's just the idea that it's something you apparently have to do, that everyone else does, when turning 21, to me, seems so irrelevant. Obviously it's the big traditional coming-of-age thing in my culture, but it seems that by 21, you're allowed to do everything already and so there's nothing particularly liberating about becoming a 'proper adult'. It seems to me that 20 is more of a landmark because you're out of the teens. And you have to invite heaps of people, that's like one of The Unwritten Rules, so you get stuck with all these people you have to entertain that you don't necessarily know that well. It seems much cosier, to me, just to invite your really good friends and family for dinner or something--but then, because The Unwritten Rules say so, if you only do that, it seems slightly offensive for anyone whose name you know to be left out.
And then there's the whole speeches/etc thing. It just makes me feel uncomfortable to imagine that. As if I've put on a party to be all about me. The silly thing is I never feel other people put on parties to be all about them. But yeah...
Once I got my full license, I thought I would never worry about anything or have any spectres in my future until I got to my seventies and had to resit my driving license. How very wrong I was. :)