Another worrying realisation...

Last night I fulfilled my grand-daughterly duties and stayed in for dinner with my beloved grandparents. Dinner with them can be a bit of a minefield at the best of times (best of times = having siblings plus their other halves as backup), trying to dodge the jellyfish comments takes an awful lot of energy or an awful lot of wine (particular favourite, Grandma circa 2001: "you don't really have the complexion to pull off dark hair" not so much jelly fish as electric eel!) Anyway last night we got round to talking about next year and what a big one it is; the schedule of celebrations goes like this:

• Mum and Dad's 35th wedding anniversary
• Grandma and Grandad's 60th wedding anniversary (quite how they've put up with each other for that long I'll never know!)
• Sister's wedding
• Great Aunt and Uncle's 40th wedding anniversary
• My 30th birthday

Wait a minute...did I say my 30th birthday?!?!?! I'M GOING TO BE 30 NEXT YEAR. Cue severe depression. Now, I have never been very good at dealing with my birthday, the awkward moments of opening presents in front of people and having to feign sheer delight at the contents, the cringingly embarrassing singing of happy birthday whilst everyone looks at you, the endless photos that you have to be centre of....etc etc. All in all I'm just not very good at being the centre of attention and I hate it! Also there's the awful knowledge that for another year, no progress has been made whatsoever in my sad pathetic life. 

Last year, for my 28th, I decided that the only way to deal with the impending doom of being another year older and no further on with becoming a grown up was to run away to the middle of the desert with Kirsti and to watch sunrise over Uluru. This was a desperate attempt to feel insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe, my birthday wouldn't matter compared to such ancient history and cultural wonderment. Hmmmmm can't say it worked really. I still turned 28, I just had to get up at 4:30 after sleeping in a freezing cold tent and then tramp around the surprisingly humid desert (stupid La Nina ruining the weather!) without having washed my hair. With the power of hindsight I can perhaps say that it wasn't my most brilliant plan. Still I got to see Uluru, which was fairly spectacular, I wasn't at work, I had a birthday curry and I didn't get homesick because I couldn't ring home with no signal in the middle of the desert. Result! I actually had a really good time and it's certainly one to tell the grandchildren that I'll never have (no jellyfishing from this imaginary Granny!) 

So my plan for dealing with the big Three O...well I reckon there are three options:

1. Pretend that it's not happening and hope that it'll go away by perhaps staying in with a bottle of wine and some chocolate in my pyjamas singing "All By Myself" Bridget stylee; or
2. Run off on holiday to somewhere fantastic, drink pina coladas on the beach and flirt with inappropriate backpackers and/or diving instructors; or
3. Stick two fingers up to 30 by throwing a massive party, insisting everyone brings a single man with them and having a wonderful drunken time singing along to "I need a Hero" at the top of my voice with all the people I love most in the world

I'm kind of liking option number 3, if I start planning it now with 16 months to go I might be over it by the time  it arrives. It's certainly overshadowing the impending doom of turning 29 in three and a half months (who's counting?!) which in it's self is excellent news! And how will I be celebrating this year? I'm going to someone else's hen weekend of course *rolls eyes*