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| Me and me mate Kim just chilling our in our slobs on an average day... |
Tomorrow my best friend turns thirty.
It's a milestone. It's a special day. She's the first of our little group to hit the Big Three Oh. It's her first big birthday in "proper adulthood"*. It means that I've pulled out all the stops in terms of celebrations, presents and tributes. It means that I've spent hours and hours thinking about what we've achieved thus far in our lives. And all the things we are yet to achieve. Together hopefully.
It means that I got all slushy and sentimental.
Shocker.
I'm so proud of Kim and everything that she is, I'm so grateful for everything that she is to me, and I'm so lucky to have her as a friend, and for some reason have decided that her 30th birthday is the time to start spouting on about it. But to be honest I felt much the same way about Kim on her 16th birthday, her 23rd birthday, her 27th… In fact all of her birthdays, but for some reason Turning Thirty means that birthday cards and presents have been agonised over for hours when usually I know her so well that I can walk in to a shop and select her a great gift. The celebrations are less about a meal, a cake and a drunken night out with the girls and more about doing something meaningful and memorable and searching for hours for the right cake the perfect wrapping paper and the most special venue. For some reason this birthday is all about tributes and memories and "looking back as well as forward" (schmaltz alert). But really, shouldn't all birthdays be this special? In fact, shouldn't all days be this special? Then again, I suppose if they were I'd never sleep!
More to the point, why should Turning Thirty mean that only now I need to tell Kim how great she is? Maybe I should have given a speech at her wedding… or maybe not! I suppose what I'm trying to say is that this Milestone Birthday has become such a big event, and quite rightly so, but really, I should tell Kim (and indeed all my loved ones) these things every day, not just because it's her 30th birthday. So, Mrs Sones, as it's NOT your birthday today and because I love Alice in Wonderland so much** and have never had the chance to celebrate someone's Un-Birthday before, here are some lovely things I'd like to say to you:
- You are special to so many people in so many ways. You are an amazing wife, mother, daughter, sister, niece, godmother, godchild, aunt, friend, colleague…
- I am so proud of you, and everything that you have achieved
- I am so confident that you will succeed in everything you put your mind to
- I am so grateful that you have always been there for me in my times of need (and I am so sorry that there have been so many hours of need)
- I am so covetous of your amazing hair
- I am so sorry to have burdened you with so many of my neuroses and issues
- I am so glad to have shared so many special life experiences with you
- I am so baffled by your number jargon
- I am so appreciative that you are there to help me with my number-dyslexia (and that you only tease me a little bit about it!)
- I am so ashamed to have vomited all over you. And your husband. And your sister's floor
- I am so pleased I took my camera to school all those times and captured our misspent youth so beautifully
- I am so envious of your level-headed nature
- I am so thankful that you use your serenity to chill-me-the-hell-out-when-I'm-freaking-out-about-something-ridiculous
- I am so lucky that we bonded over pixie boots and atrocious hair accessories in 1992 in Ms Gray's form room
- I am so happy that we are friends
Happy Un-Birthday Kim.
xoxo
*18 being more about the ability to legally drink in bars and clubs, 21 being about getting in to "over 25s nights" and pulling older boys with better cars, 25 being about "only 5 years until 30" and being a wife, parent, home owner and business woman doesn't really make you a grown up until you're 30, does it?)
** how have I had a blog this long and not posted about my AiW obsession yet? SHOCKING?
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