Thirtysomething

I happen to be one of those people who thoroughly enjoy celebrating my birthday (or lets face it, celebrating just about anything for that matter but that's a topic for another post). When it’s no longer embarrassing to start planning a fest for November (which is usually sometime during the first week of September), I set my sights on my next birthday adventure. Not usually content with a small gathering of close friends, I search out a venue where my friends and I can shed those civilised personas we decided it was appropriate to don sometime around age 30 and get back to our Jager-bomb roots with reckless abandon.

As a good friend pointed out, it's not the decades that mess with our heads, it's the declining years of said decade that really does us in. 20 - brilliant! 25+ - what am I doing with my life? 30 - well hello, self confidence, welcome! 35+ - what the hell am I doing with my life? Consciously or not, this year I went about my birthday preparations with a strategy and determination that would make MacArthur proud. A weekend on the Isle of Wight, birthday party with a pop-up photo studio, not to mention a weeklong holiday from work with a visit from one of my best friends to boot. It was amazing!

But one thing has been nagging at me and that is that not one, but two new friends (because let's face it those who have known me for awhile know what's coming each November) commented on the fact that it was "great" that someone of "my age" still felt cause to celebrate another year with such gusto. The way I see it is this: it just keeps getting better and there's always something to celebrate when you look back on the year behind you and forward to the year ahead. It's the one time each year when you can and should celebrate YOU, your friends, your accomplishments, your failures, your shining moments, your embarrassments, your moments of amazing sparks and the (as of yet) awful dates that have followed and all the love in your life. Go for it - celebrate you and celebrate the blessings!