So I’m not sure what happened…one day we all seemed to spend way too much of our time amazed at each other’s ability to write and share their view of the world…leading to the forging of new friendships and the reviving of ones not quite forgotten. Blogging became our individual yet collective way of both embracing and making sense of our world…I miss it. And regret the moments manic and magic that I haven’t captured on paper and are gone forever.
So where to begin….
I last blogged in April when my world was in that state of torture that was looming coursework and exam deadlines and the shadow of the then approaching ‘milestone’ birthday was looming so large upon my horizon that reaching towards light on the other side seemed impossible.
But as time and tide wait for no woman 30 did arrive… these were the highlights
- Getting a Tiffany’s bracelet from my sister and bro-in-law bought in NYC on the same day they got engaged. Having lost my ‘first’ one during a drunken escapade this was much more than I deserved… N came the whole way from Belfast to D’dee in rush hour for a flying 20 minute visit to be here when I opened that duck-egg blue box. T is a lucky girl to be marrying him; and I’m so blessed by them both.
- Dinner in Grace Neils with T and many great old friends in attendance and seeing one of them blissfully tipsy for the first time since the birth of her beautiful daughter (also coming home with bags full of goregeous presents)
- The much talked about and taunted ‘English department’ day out: an Ards peninsula pub crawl that included great friends, lovely wine, good food and cheerleading on the Portaferry ferry in a pink wig with pompoms! I was humbled by the money, time and preparation the ‘girls’ had gone too. A day out turned into an overnight stay and my lazy Sunday was capped of with yet another dinner out to relive the glory of the previous day…
- My birthday weekend itself was spent in London with more good friends and those I feel most guilty about; I never see these one time housemates and soulmates from studentville. We were greeted with champagne, spent time in Covent Garden, got to finally discover the glory that is Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. I made the bold choice of spending the afternoon alone watching Les Miserables. Words fail me…. I was worried that the performance would fail to live up to the huge expectations I had of it. By the interval I no longer had make-up on my face and was literally shaking as I drank my red wine at the bar. The theatrical spectacular was all I needed it to be and more. Our London adventure continued with a rickshaw ride to see a very hilarious Chicago and then drinks and dancing in a very trashy nightclub. All I wanted and more…
- Take That at Croke Park had long been pencilled in, highlighted in pink, underlined and asterixed in red in my diary. One of my fellow Take That obsessives had (what turned out to be a great if at the minute very little excuse) not to come; but undaunted Mel and I got the all-singing, all drinking train to Dublin and fell back in love with the boys from Manchester. Circus really was the greatest show on earth: they never, never disappoint and yet raise the bar for entertainment with each new tour. A rather long and misdirected walk back to the hotel was brightened by an encounter with a very comical encounter with a Garda officer who knew we were both so enchanted by his sexy accent, the uniform and high on emotion that the complicated directions he gave us would never be followed.
And despite the long list this doesn’t begin to cover what my dreaded 30th birthday became. I had dreaded it because I’d looked only for the things my life was missing: the truly successful career(as opposed to the one I feel I do badly), the husband, the house (rather than the apartment increasingly in need of work), the baby, the completed world trip and had instead missed the blessings of the life I have at the minute: the overwhelming generosity of family and friends, the social opportunites and fun that lies in favourite cities and here on my doorstep…
One of my many birthday cards quoted Brigit Bardot as saying, ‘ When you’re thirty your’e old enough to know better, but still young enough to go ahead and do it.’ She’s right.
