My birthday is today!! Yippee!

It’s not a ‘big’ birthday as some people have asked, but it’s the one before. I feel okay about this, I mean all my friends are approaching theirs too, I’m in good company. I’m inclined to think, like the deep soul I am, about previous birthdays.

Observing my friends before me, the year previous to them turning 40 they seemed to have a little mid-life crisis of sorts, suddenly they were talking about age, and being old, they seemd to think they had to stop having fun. All this time, i have been wondering if it would hit me and I must admit it has.

Even I am not immune to this…this… defeatist attitude. (That is all I can think of to call it) But I’m not really prone to melancholy, or defeat, i’m much more an it will always work out, because i will make it, kinda of person. It’s a strange thing, so I have been reminding myself of previous big birthdays and the joy they did bring.

Big birthdays

I remember turning 13 first, it was one of those birthdays that I couldn’t wait to happen. Mainly because of the promise of my period arriving and being able to join in the period chat with the rest of the girls.

There was also the chance that Darren Hynes was going to kiss me at my friend’s birthday party and that was also exciting. I didn’t know that in years to come the whole period thing would be, quite literally, a pain, and contrary to adverts I wouldn’t be roller skating along California streets, my hair floating out behind me, instead I would be in the foetal position in bed, clutching a hot water bottle for dear life and adopting the characteristics of an angry Staffie if anyone tried to reason with me. And Darren Hynes? A trawl through Facebook tells me I had a lucky escape.

18 couldn’t come fast enough, I wanted to dance at Bon Bonnes with my friends and snog Anthony Packham, instead I would spend the next two years indulging in some very heavy and intense ‘eye contact’ before that happened. I was also a ‘kid from fame’ and as precarious as they came.

I was also , INCREDIBLY embarrassed by my large family. “You can have a party at the house,” my dear mother said, “Not bloody likely” I replied.

I had standards! An image!

A bros poster still on my bedroom wall and 100 teddy bears on my bed. 18 passed in a blur as I yoga’d and tapped danced my way around the London underground. We sang in Leicester square, and my friends bathroom, before we went into a top London Music promoters office and hounded him with our demo tape. Generally I had a bigger laugh than he did!

Key to the door – unlocked living

21 – This I remember clearly, the key to the door and all that. Though it did seem more like the key to the taxi who would drive you home from Bon Bonnes with your besties holding your hair back as you puked out of the window because you thought it would be chic to drink champagne all night.

But then came travelling and tearing up Europe and Asia, making friends, breaking hearts, smoking fags and playing pool, pretending I never went to school. My twenties were the best without a doubt and I thought I was so grown up, I thought I knew everything, but as life goes on, you realise that you are but a young pup, with lessons around every corner and you have a long way to go to being a grown up!

After that came 30, and time to really grow up. I cut my hair and got a job, I was a wife, a Mother, I had a mortgage, a cat, two cats. This was what we all aimed for. This was what we all wanted. But this was not what I signed up for, I did not flourish at that part. I’d had my own business, twice. I felt so grown up.

What on earth could be missing? I divorced, I dated, I danced (I LOVE dancing!) I had, I am having, the time of my life. I am signing up to do a degree. I finally feel ready for University, to hone my craft, (to party the night away and turn up late for lecturers, hehe) In truth I don’t want 30’s to stop. I have grown up and I have grown down again. I’ve grown to the left, with clowns at the right. If I have to leave the 30’s It only leaves the dreaded 40’s.

40 reasons why..

40’s where they say life begins, but I think that’s just to cheer you up. I think they say that so you don’t cry. I think they say that so when you write your age and you still attempt to write a 2 at the start, it cushions the blow. Life begins at 40, because you know everything, you’ve tried it all, you get to choose what you love most, and what you kick to the curb, you know the places you love, you know the people you love, you are sure in the choices you have made and you jump out of bed each day because, really, inside, you don’t feel any different to when you were 21, except this time you puke in the toilets like a lady.

And, a further sweetener is this, fellow age people, our childhood and teenage years are not splashed on Facebook like all the young people we know. I’ll fecking drink to that 🙂

So, I feel extremely blessed with my lot so far, 30’s, you’re with me for one more year, let’s be having you!!