the nostalgia of three zero

Baby brother and me, August 1981

1981 was a pretty good year when it came to awesome people being born.  In the April my along came baby brother, and much as I didn’t appreciate his arrival at the time, thirty years later I can’t imagine life without him.  Then in the May there was Phil who recently celebrated her big three-zero.  And in the July the world welcomed, with some trepidation, Himself (why yes I am a Cougar).

These three marvellous people in my life are all celebrating the start of a new decade and closing the door on the old one with all its good and bad moments. I celebrate along with them.

But to be frank readers all this turning thirty business has made me feel old.  My baby brother is thirty for goodness sake.  A week tomorrow I turn thirty seven.  And honestly, I don’t know how I feel about that.  The last seven years have disappeared in a flash and also lasted a lifetime. Seven years ago I was training to teach yoga, I had just got back from India, I had just finished writing that novel, I was single and lived in a tiny shoebox of a flat in one of the less trendy boroughs of north London, I drove an MG convertible, I still worked in an office.

Life changes and sometimes it’s hard to get your head around it.  I’m not very good at getting older and I have a tendency towards nostalgia and melancholy.  You’re as old as you feel, they tell me.  Unfortunately some mornings I feel ninety seven!

I look back at that girl who turned thirty and barely recognise her.  I don’t think even my mother would recognise her! But as a reminder I dug out an old Live Journal entry I wrote back in 2004 about my thirtieth birthday that I thought I would share with you.  This decade didn’t get off to the most auspicious of beginnings.

Here’s to forty I guess!

~~~~

Liverpool: An Anecdote
June 2004

I was turning thirty.  Doom doom etc. Die alone.  Eaten by Alsations.

“Why don’t we go away somewhere for the weekend,” pipes up my friend.  Let’s call her A.

The National Trust had just bought John Lennon’s childhood home and opened it as a museum.  I have a weird obsession with The Beatles  and decided to go to Liverpool.  Besides I thought it would be nice to see where mother grew up — I had been once before but it was as a child and had something to do with my small brother meeting Postman Pat.  I forget what.

We left London in blazing sunshine and summer clothes with a bottle of bubbly packed (squeezed into) the boot (minute space in rear) of my MG convertible.  With the roof down we set off, like an unglamorous Thelma and Louise.

As we approached the North the weather became grimmer.  By the time we got to Liverpool it was cold and drizzly.  Typical.  And not an umbrella between us.  We spent the first night in a traditional manner – eating Nachos and drinking champagne until A complained her stomach hurt and had to lie down.  Rock’n'roll.

We were very good on the Saturday, getting up early and dressing in layers of our summer clothes in an attempt to keep warm.  We did all our touristy stuff; Messrs Lennon and McCartney’s childhood homes, the very tacky Beatles Museum, the obligatory stop off at the old This Morning studios and A took me out for a marvellous meal and the restaurant played my favourite Minnie Ripperton song.  Sadly, I was still not 30, that was to come.

I have never been a late to bed kind of girl.  I was drifting off to the Nodland before midnight…..

Until the fire alarm went off.  Loudly and persistently.

“Oh do sod off,” I said pulling the pillows over my head, desperately trying to refind my dreams.

Then the Duty Manager started knocking on the doors, making sure we all got out of bed.

I swore at him.  Loudly and eloquently.

This went on for some time.  A, I believe, gave in before me and put some sensible clothes on.  I was not giving up the bed without a fight.  It seemed obvious to me that if there had been a fire then we would have burned in our beds after all this time so there was nothing to worry about.  Except shutting that persistent bell up of course.

I lost the battle.  Practically dragged out of the room kicking and screaming I was forced to assemble outside with the other plebs, wearing nothing but a pair of pink gingham PJ bottoms and a tie dye vest (please remember it was freezing).

Somehow, as we walked through the hotel, the corridors seemed different to how they did in daylight.  Twisty and turny and bathed in a distant glow.  Right turns became lefts and figures, silent as zombies, wandered amongst them.

“All we need,” I said apprehensively, “is a dancing dwarf and it’s like the hotel in Twin Peaks.”

I shivered as the fire exit was opened by a  bald man of extremely limited height, wearing nothing but underpants.
______________________________________

As I sat in my PJs in the cold North West night, I glanced at my watch.

“Oh look,” I mumbled, blue with cold, “I’m 30.”

But A was too busy shouting at the Duty Manager for refusing to give up his jacket for me.

“It’s my bloody birthday,” I said.

~~~~

Sadly A and I lost touch a few years ago – things change, especially in your thirties.

I still have the pink gingham PJ bottoms though.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 29th, 2011 at 3:58 pm and is filed under rachel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.