Fuck! I’m Nearly Fifty

So I’ve had nearly fifty years to organise my half-century mammoth birthday party to end all birthday parties.

FreeImages.com/Yaziki Ekrem

And I have thought about it a lot in the past. But now I’m actually here, I’m not sure I can be bothered.

What happened to me? I used to pride myself on being an obsessive organiser and have wasted hours of valuable living time ruminating over all these fab plans since my fortieth. I was going to have a formal sit-down dinner, live jazz playing gently in the background, hired help (young, male and shirtless, preferably), the surprise appearance of Chris Hemsworth and loads of expensive Champagne.

But then life got in the way and my energy levels feel so depleted at the moment I hardly know what day it is at the moment, let alone how to really celebrate what is fundamentally not a great milestone in your life, other than the relief at having made it. This is not a moan for once – I’m actually in a reasonably good place with the kids both away and the old man pretending to be at my beck and call because he feels guilty about not working at the moment and is obviously questioning just how I balanced work and being a housewife for the last twenty years without combusting. But I’m just too bloody busy to think, sleep or even find the time to drink wine at the moment.

We have too many damn things to celebrate at this time of the year, too and there’s only a certain amount of smiling this old face will take. We’ve already suffered the old man’s birthday with his cruel taunts and reminders that I’m a whole year older than him. Like that’s new! Then there was Kurt’s 18^th where we all maxed out on the dangerous levels of testosterone in the apartment, it might be our anniversary sometime during the next week and NC’s 21^st is drawing perilously closer and I haven’t even started on the anxiety and insomnia required for that – although I have started dreaming about accidental damage insurance and looking at my pristine carpet longingly…

So my fiftieth has kind of passed me by, been downgraded to a level 2 and no doubt will evolve into another of my mish-mashed, last-minute-dot-com, fumbled-together affairs where I forget vital ingredients or to cook at all because I remember to drink. I blame the meds – they remove some of the stress but they also take out any sense of urgency from my event-planning these days and I’ve turned into a ‘just rock up’, ‘laissez-faire’ type of girl now.

Even the thought of what I’m going to feed vegetarians and coeliacs isn’t phasing me, so I really can’t be bothered, can I?

It’s not like I can trust any of the organization to the old man, even if he has assumed unemployed bum status since he become a professional ‘in-between jobs’ person.

The ageing process is slowing me down, that’s what it is. MY fifty is the new sixty. Partying no longer turns me on in the same way as snoozing in front of movies, fantasising about Gary on Masterchef, getting to bed as early as possible and drinking vast quantities of herbal tea to prolong the health of my bladder. And frankly, the thought of squeezing my voluptuousness into a tight dress makes me feel quite nauseous.

Fuck I’m Nearly Fifty!