The casualisation of my 30s

I turn thirty in approximately four months, yeah yeah I know, way to jump the gun with this blog post, but I’m excited about it. Don’t ask me why or to give you specifics, I just am. I’m not particularly expecting some opening of the heavens, sun shining down on me, conveniently forming a halo around me like in the movies, no, not really. If anything, more often than not my birthday is caught up in the hullabaloo of the festive season, annual shutdown, everyone is off to a vacation, hopefully booked months prior, Christmas is five days away and there in the midst of all that is the increasing likelihood of being lumped up with everything and forgotten. Not particularly because my friends and acquaintances are mean, its just, a busy time of the year.

Its safe to say that there are generally 2 types of people. The ones who don’t care about their birthdays and the ones who will shout about it on top of every mountain they can reach. Oh my gosh, the latter will start you off with birthday month announcements, countdowns, wish lists and thanks to Tiktok and Snapchat memories, completely flood your timelines and feeds with the fact that the day heralds a new year for them. It is my belief that the former and second group secretly WANT to celebrate their birthdays, they just have been disappointed too many times that they find it easier to cushion themselves from the ennui before it actually engulfs them. I mean why else would you be nonchalant about a day that only comes once a year? Albeit some people can argue about the superfluousness of the concept of time and how did the first person know it was Thursday the first of January. Well, we can only hope that the person who counted first, got it right, and if we thought like that? Almost everything we do and adhere to has been made up.

The most prominent issue that my birthday raised, was the fact that I never got to carry a cake to primary school so that I could eat it with my friends. I knooooow it sounds petty and childish, but darn it I WAS a child and yes it still stings at my big age. Oh the joy, the wonderous joy, blue icing, pink icing, humongous clumps of it in between the layers of pastry, toothachingly sweet and baked to perfection. To have your mom escort you to school with balloons and confetti, strutting into the classroom like you owned the place, and a special treat for your closest friend who you could pick out. Sigh, my mother’s loudest claim in our household is that any stage you skip, you come back to, psychology 101. I think this is my stage, suffice to say even in adulthood I cannot go back to it because annual shutdown ensures I cannot carry cake to work. So, spare a thought if any, for individuals born in the dying days of December, they are going through the most.

If there is one thing that this pandemic has taught me? It is the futility and yet paradoxically, precious nature of life. I mean yeah, we always used to talk about it, sure, but never with this level of reverence. Now we KNOW, our statuses are filled messages of condolences and pain, anguish and sorrow, we have known more sadness than joy in the past two years. I mean I never in my wildest of dreams thought that I would be a widow at 28. I think maybe that’s why birthdays matter all the more now, the next one might not come, so maybe lets just give this one, which I’ve been fortunate enough to experience? Everything we’ve got to give.

I was raised to be a prim and proper person, generally, I mean sure, I didn’t always conform to what my parents wanted but more often than not, their traditional ways niggled through to my mind, wont to permeate and sift down to my core behavior. I kneel to give warm hand washing water, I button up my blouses all the way to my neck, I struggle to wear short things even though I want to and try as I might I still haven’t gotten the tiny tattoo that I want because deep down in the recesses of my conservative conscience, it feels wrong. I have chosen greys and blacks over pinks and yellows since for as long as I can remember. Now im not usually one to wait on a specific event to start living life the way I want to, hardly, but there is something deliciously satisfying and happy OCD dancing about marking a change in ones life with a distinct decade.

Enter in dazzling brilliance, the casualization of my 30s, cat walking boldly into the room, red carpet, with all the trimmings, holding her head up boldly, ripped jeans? YES, crop tops, WE ARE DOING THAT! We are meeting new people; we are saying no for no reason other than the fact that we don’t want to. We are being kinder and more compassionate, we are not waiting for groups in order to do activities, we are bungee jumping and sky diving. We are wearing neon green and popping pink. We are learning to let things go!!! Someone stop me with the we’s before this becomes a thing. Insert the satisfied sigh of a person who has come to a splendid realization, with a gratified smile plastered on my face. All I know is my thirties are going to be glorious and I am here for it!!