Hitting the big three-O, Part I

Reading Caroline à Londres's blog these past few days made me think about my own experience in hitting the big three-O. Of course mine is not as GLAMOUROUS as celebrating a birthday in bloody BARCELONA (I have absolutely no pity whatsoever for you dearest Caroline :) Plus, you look happy! You should be ashamed of yourself! ) And I thought I would make all of you feel better about being 30 by telling the story of my own misery. There's nothing better than to read about somebody else's angst to make you forget about yours. So, Caroline, this one's for you :)

Well, it's been over four years now, and enough water has passed under the Bridges for me to tell it without feeling too much pain. Again, like any story I recall from memory, bear with me, because even though it's not been THAT long (stop smirking! I saw that!) I might be tempted to dramatize a little, for entertainment purposes but mostly to soften your soft spot and gain your empathy so you can feel sorry for me, but you won't know that. (So just ignore me) Here goes.

Hitting the big three-O is very difficult for a woman. It's that symbolic age where you think you should be wiser, but realize you're more clueless than ever. Even if today, people say that thirty is the new twenty (making forty the new thirty, but I'll tell you about this experience when I get there, I'm in no rush; I suspect it's even worse than 30 but then again what do I know) Turning thirty is quite the existential experience. For instance, if you're married or in a long-term relationship at that time, you look back on your twenties and ask yourself if you did the right thing, if you should still go on with your life as it is, if it was worth it, really.... You revisit the good, the bad and the ugly of the things you accomplished up to that pinpoint moment in your life. If you have kids you realise that's it's sooooo much more difficult than you thought it would be, curse your own mother for not telling you about it when there was still time to bail (Or maybe you should have taken a clue from all those half-empty frozen vodka bottles in the freezer, hidden behind the chocolate ice cream that you snatched while nobody was looking as you were growing up) you wonder if becoming a mother was a wise choice for you, or if that choice was sort of forced upon you (sometimes the unconscious makes you do the most irresponsible things, like forget your pill, forget the condom, forget the name of who you're having sex with; you know, the things a twenty-something might do) then you start cursing that drunken night out with the father of your children, that ended up in careless unprotected but oh-so-naughty sex in the restaurant bathroom, and nine months later you were a mummy...(Please note that is a STORY and any resemblance with real or fictional characters is purely coincidental) if you don't have any children then you wonder what you're missing out on and your clock starts ticking...In other words, hitting thirty means asking yourself lots of useless questions without getting any satisfying answers. Come to think of it, my mum must have started to hide vodka bottles in the freezer when she was thirty. Good going Mum. Now I understand.

For me, my thirtieth birthday would become the ultimate symbol of the mayhem and confusion to come. I mean, at that moment, I was still married to Lee, mind you, I had my two beautiful children, I was still in school and I spent most of my days in the house, writing like a mad woman, cooking, cleaning, doing the mummy thing while Justin was running around in his diapers, Rose was tormenting her baby brother, and I was seriously thinking about going on antidepressants. I embodied the perfect little desperate housewife. Lee was not home very often. I remember, at that time, He was working on one of his biggest projects, a huge overpass to be built over highway 15 in Laval. He was working overtime everyday, and we had only one car, his, which meant I was alone, transportation-less, with the kids in the house. My 30th birthday was coming up, and I was not a happy mummy. I never liked celebrating my birthday; for some reason, it always made me feel like people pitied me, it felt fake; they just HAD to act nice to me without feeling it, just because it was my birthday. It never felt genuine to me. Maybe it's just me, but I always, always felt like at my birthday, people wanted to be somewhere else, had other people to see, other more important things to do, and pretending to be oh-so-happy so I wouldn't feel bad. What they didn't know was that I felt bad already. My friends' birthday gifts were always hits & misses: For example, one year I got really excited with gardening and prepared for spring all year, and when my birthday came all I got was light cooking recipe books (unfortunately hunky Jamie Oliver was not around at that time); another year, after I just gave birth to Justin and had gained a bit of weight (I was HUGE and so depressed that year I almost killed myself, but not to worry) my concerned friends all chipped in to buy me, OH WOW... an exercise bike; another year my husband organized a surprise dinner party for me and forgot where he had made the reservations, so we ended up in a shopping mall parking lot with friends I hadn't seen in ages taking turns to yell SURPRISE! at confused and disappointed me from their cars, then driving off into the sunset; Lee finally told everyone to meet at a Chinese buffet on picturesque boulevard des Laurentides for unlimited birthday egg rolls (yum) I cracked open a fortune cookie that said "Don't be hasty, tragedy will knock on your door soon" and later on that evening I had an allergic reaction to MSG. It was greeeeaaat. So when the time for my 30th birthday came, let's just say I wasn't looking forward to it.

I had been feeling very depressed that year, and things were not good between Lee and me. We had grown more distant and I was making an effort to give us another chance, but didn't really believe it. I was weary and bored out of my mind. But things were looking up: Lee had planned to take me out for a surprise evening that Saturday, along with our friends C. and P. Now let me put you into context so you can share the existential angst I was experiencing at that memorable moment of my life. P. was my husband's co-worker, and we had known him for years; C. was his wife-girlfriend, a very sexy blond bimbo-type girl, not that there's anything wrong with that. She was still very nice. To me, anyway. She and P. had a few rough times; she had hooked up with an old lover a few weeks ago, got caught, and, well, made P. a modern-day cocu. but they seemed to have worked it out, and it looked like they patched things up. Let's just say there was still a bit of tension in the air, but hopefully a night out to celebrate a depressed housewife's 30th birthday would cheer everybody and bring everyone closer together, no? Have I mentionned earlier that my birthdays were always awkward? Do you think my 30th would be different?

Now, without going into details, (if you want some you will have to ask for them) P. has carried a bit of a torch for me over the years, and I never discouraged him; it was all very innocent and nothing ever happened between us, until, you guessed it, my 30th birthday. I swear to you, it's NOT what you think! It is so not what you think. In the spirit of 30th birthdays, I shall tell you this story, for it is THE pinpoint in my life. But first, I need a drink. A stiff one.

Caroline, your 30th birthday in Barcelona sounded so lovely. :)