It’s my birthday tomorrow! I’m going to be 33. Seeing it written down feels young. I sometimes wonder if men torture themselves with age comparison in the same way I do? All men versus me. Because through my 20’s I was a) endlessly so young because I was in my 20’s around everyone else in their 30’s, and b) quite keen to get on one of those lists of success under 30. It felt like I had all the time in the world and I’m not exaggerating when I say that feeling changed overnight. (unfortunate). Anyway, I didn’t get on any lists at all and in my more cynical days I feel I also lost the blind courage my youth gave me. People sometimes talk about this in relation to becoming mothers, like losing some of the confidence and power you once thought nothing of. It’s probably why there’s an episode of Sex and the City called Valley of twenty-something women. God damn I wish I understood the luminous beauty of youth at the time.
People also talk about the further shaking of confidence that comes later and with menopause, so on my other cynical days I think, ok then which is the good bit? Is it now? Right now I have the most body confidence (sorry to say the words body confidence) I’ve ever had and I think my face is the best it’s been minus a few lines. So big old tick in that column. I am free, I am in love and I do something I love but it’s not quite making me enough money yet but the hope is, disposable income is a’coming. So, is this the best bit? Is every bit the best bit but you don’t realise till after? Like right now I can text a friend, do you want to meet tonight for wine and often then do and will.
I am quite familiar with the state of longing. And I once heard Aisling Bea talk about the state of loneliness on a podcast and felt a hard relate there too. Even when not alone, I’ve KNOWN lonely. I’ve known lonely alright, felt the depths of it. Oh I KNOW IT BABE. There was something/is something so comfy about both those states. Longing and lonely. In some ways they are easy. I think this when people who ‘have what I want’ don’t act as grateful as I project they should. Like my set of woes are the worst any human can have so if you’ve not slept in weeks because of your kid’s sleep regression, I cannot help but whisper under my breath, ‘at least you have a baby to regress’. It’s quite a toxic and alienating part of me :). And I wish I could stop seeing life in this kind of hierarchy. I also wish I could be a logical person, but literally anyone with a pair of eyes looking at my birth chart can agree it’s impossible.
In Italy a couple of years ago in what I’d call the pits of my singledom where no one was holding out much hope for me, I text my sisters. I was in this beautiful town alone, looking whimsically out to sea, setting off on big treacherous hikes, eating alone, watching the sunset poignantly with tears in my eyes, alone. And I said something about how profoundly alone and lonely I felt. Gemma swiftly replied, are you lonely or are you just bored? And that’s a fantastic pin in my own melodrama and one that the people who love me the most need to execute from time to time. Because it sure was fun to play role of sad tragic Indie girl for a while. I added Indie and I’m not sure anyone would describe me as Indie but I do have my nose pierced so that’s on you.
It’s the semi finals of the euros tomorrow for my birthday that I’ve mentioned already and Tom loves football more than me so I’m going to the pub for a lairy and laddy time. Since being with Tom I’ve learnt to appreciate football, like, loads. I even wrote about it in a profound Substack a few months ago. I enjoy the actual game, I can’t cope with how much it teaches me about energy and people and I like going to the pub to watch the football. When we first started dating, a friend (sort of friend, tbh we’ve not spoken in a year apart from an awkward accidental encounter) ridiculed me for getting into football because my boyfriend likes it. Like, don’t be one of THOSE girls was the message. Have a backbone. And I felt embarrassed and stung, but then really I had just never really watched football before, and now I do, every single weekend and a few nights a week for 10 months of the year and I get it and I like it when it’s on.
It’s a lot easier to judge stuff from the outside than to put the hours in to learn about it. But look, I can see it brings out the worst in some people at times, and yet I can see the life, joy and excitement it brings. Anyway, like I was saying I’m footy mad now. But the last few weeks have taught me that international football I cannot bear. Not to play the insufferable empath card I tore apart last week, but something astonishing happens to me in international football. Gemma seems to be the same. And, we can’t bear it. Sure everyone was nervous hiding behind their hands for the pens on Saturday night (since being footy mad I tend to say pens instead of penalties and prem instead of premier league, but that’s just me). So collectively it’s unbearable to take that tension, but I left the pub at the 90 minute mark and did laps around Centre Parcs on my bike with Gemma. In the euro finals of 2021 (also my birthday weekend) I left the party early and alone to walk the streets instead of watch them. I heard cheers and then silence and honestly the emotion of collective disappointment makes me want to vomit and scream.
Tom sent videos of Beth when England won on Saturday. She was the most expressive and happy I’ve ever seen her. In fact watching Beth watch football is one of the best experiences of my life. It’s everything. So I saw the video and watched them roll in (and fall off) a bike as they came back in drunk and elated and I was so jealous. Even though I couldn’t stay. I missed the best bits because honestly watching England plan in international tournaments makes me feel like I’m on a plane with severe turbulence (lest we forget i’m scared of flying). I had similar emotions watching Andy Murray play Wimbledon in the days he had a chance. And once it’s over, if they win I can spend a long time rewatching the pens or Andy in THE moment to connect to the emotion. And then suddenly I feel as if I infact feel it the most. The number one fan. Insufferable that isn’t it. Very similar response to general elections.
Anyway, I’m anxious about my birthday party/the semi finals because I have put myself in the eye of the storm and I want to let myself be in it and actually be the one having the most fun and I am so worried I will ruin it for myself. Why can some people let loose and others can’t? Apart from my one wild summer of fun two years ago I am always the one who goes home. And even my wild summer was actually just MDMA two times, a pill taken in quarters. But the birthday that hit during my summer of fun was the best example of me letting loose that I have. I dressed in the tiniest denim shorts anyone has seen, wore an incredible sort of open shirt with horses painted on the back in rainbow colours, a cowboy hat and pink lipstick and I was unstoppable.
I purchased my own drugs (grown up and exciting), offered them to friends and then took zero responsibility for anyone else’s good night and just had mine. Oh and it was girls only and it was karaoke. Everyone except maybe two long-suffering friends had an amazing time. Mopping the floor at 5am as the sun came up (mopping, because I am who I am) was the freest I’ve been. It was the pits and depths of my singledom and the most free and I am so glad I got that summer.
When I would date (fall in love) with men who at the first sign of feelings declared they just want to have fun, I would stamp my feet with utter despair. 1) what’s so good about fun? And 2) I am fun! 3) what do they mean? Fun has always felt like a derogatory term. If someone you are dating says it, it’s a slap in the face. And to unpeel a layer, we all for sure have hangs ups about not being the cool girl, apart from one or two cool girls out there. Fun in that context implies detached. And sometimes I feel bad for those men because maybe they didn’t mean it that way, but mostly they did. But the thing is, fun has never been my objective in life. Even though, as mentioned, I am actually very fun.
So fun is my insecurity and it’s the opposite of how tightly wound I sometimes feel. I will so easily be the one who says no more drinks for me, or calm down, or shall we go home now. A barrier to fun if you like. I would rather go to the kitchen and wash up than stay at the table to see what happens. It’s worth mentioning that there are good things about being like this, eg. the next morning, eg. knowing I don’t have a problem, eg. no sinking spirals of shame and despair (on the whole). But I also envy the fuck it button that some people have access to.
What gets me into riddles is this, do I actually want to do the thing, press the button or do I just not want to be left out? SO what is being true to myself (sorry I just said true to myself) is about being comfortable with the no? Which most of the time is the case. I am who I am and I do want to whip the hoover round about 2am even if you’re still in the house. But there’s a small space in the sky for the part of me that wants permission to press that button. Who can not be the responsible one and not worry about being a bad girl. Another 10% of this is about wanting to be a good girl. But all I’ve learnt is that good girls never win.
So, it’s my birthday tomorrow. I’m going to be 33. I want these big grown up things in my life to come to me, but now isn’t quite the right time. So do I have to be a very good girl and wait patiently and show that I am a very good girl who can be trusted with those things? Or can I let the fuck go and live the bit i’m in now? We are so lucky, we are so free. Some Thursdays eating tuna melts around the table with Tom and my friends after a swim I think, these are the best days of our lives and we keep not realising it.
Well a happy belated birthday to you!
And of course isn’t it just utterly human that we never quite know how great we have it until afterwards? Sometimes when I sit here with my sons and think how little freedom I have and consider the drudgery of my life (wiping, washing, cooking, folding, sweeping, picking up, cooking, wiping, always wiping) I long for the days when I was single and child free. I romanticise how easy life was and how god damned silly I could be (though never was - fool).
And then I remember the pit of loneliness I felt sometimes when everyone was busy with their boyfriends and I was just kind of knocking about, a bit aimless. I remember feeling like I couldn’t find my tribe and the sadness that brought.
I guess it’s never perfect, whichever way you have it. What I do know (and I really don’t know a lot that’s for sure) is that there’s a point in your life where you start to lose friends through illness, usually if you’re lucky this starts in your mid forties, and then you realise that absolutely nothing matters at all apart from health. Nothing. It’s reductive, to realise that our animal corporeal experience is the foundation of everything. And obvious too, come to think of it. Just that we’re all so preoccupied with everything else to realise.
Anyway, happy happy birthday to you! I love your writing. You’re brilliant.
How about 33 being the year of the fuck it good girl? Is she a menacingly perfect mess? Maybe, but she's also probably brilliantly fun and also still fulfills her urge to leave the footy match early.