This Ain’t So Bad

It happened.  It finally happened.

I turned 30.

It actually happened almost a week ago, but I really haven’t had time to acknowledge it yet.  Looks like 30 is going to be a busy year!

Every birthday since 23 I have been having a mini (gigantic, if you ask my husband) anxiety attack and emotional break down about how old I was getting.  How close to 30 I was creeping.  How deep into the realness of adulthood I was sinking.

And then 30 finally came around and I really wasn’t upset at all. It was no biggie.

The truth is, I have heard that your 30’s are the best decade.  So, I am actually looking forward to them.

Plus, I had a lot of fun sending off those 20’s with a bang.  My mom read this post and kindly emailed me asking if my husband and I would like to stay in a B&B for a night when we went to visit them for my birthday weekend.  Why, how ever did you get that idea?  Sure, I guess, I mean, if you are offering…

It ended up being all nice and symbolic, too, because the first time my future husband and I ever stayed in a hotel was 10 years ago, for my 20th birthday.  He took me to the most romantic city on the East Coast: Baltimore.  I kid, but actually, I was so damn in love with that guy, even after only knowing him for 3 months, that it felt like the most romantic city on earth.  We went to an Orioles game, ate mussels at Bertha’s, took pictures of guys with mullets on the ferry, and he even bought be a seashell necklace.

Dreamy.

This time around, we went to the second most romantic place on earth: P-Town. (Or Province Town, to those not-in-the-know.)  He had a bouquet waiting for me in our B&B room, as well as a few little gifts.  We literally spent the first 30 minutes of our first night alone since having kids doing nothing.  Well, not nothing, exactly, but more like lying on the bed watching infomercials and intermittently mumbling something about how the clean the room was, how nice it smelled, or how nobody was crying in the background.

Then we came to our senses and got ourselves ready to paint the town red.  We walked to the beach and took lots of pictures with my camera that I still haven’t figured out how to use.  3 out of 129 came out alright. We had a nice glass of wine at one restaurant bar and then headed to The Mews for one of the most delicious meals ever, despite the tackiest decor I have seen in awhile.  Our table looked out over the beach and the meal ended with two chocolate desserts.

Sidenote: I gave up chocolate for Lent, but my mother claimed to have given me a Dispensation to be able to eat chocolate for that one weekend.  I didn’t want to call my mother a liar and tell her she didn’t have the clout to do that, but I do think I should check with a priest to see if that was legit.  My guess is No.  In any event, after over a month with no chocolate, they obviously tasted unbelievably amazingly delicious.

This is really where the classiness of the night took a bow and departed.

We headed over to the Governor Bradford, where I got up on stage with a Cyndi Lauper-ish drag queen to sing ‘I Just Want to Dance (with somebody)’ by Whitney. (Someone, by the way, who actually could and should only be known by her first name, unlike Lindsay or Lindsey or however you spell her first name.  I don’t really know since I could always rely on her last name to clarify since she is really is NOT THAT SPECIAL.)  It was fun.  I mean, honestly, there is really no way for drag queen karaoke to  not be fun.

Then we headed over to the Atlantic House (or A-House, as it is affectionately known), which is a club.  On Cape Cod.  I know.  Love it.

Listen, all I have to say is that we closed the place down.  And by the end of the night, I was the only female on the dance floor (possibly the whole place?), as the one bachelorette party had left…and my husband and I were perhaps the only two people in there who still had our shirts on.

Gotta love P-Town.

I was ready to do a more ‘enthused’ round of karaoke at this point, but they were closed, too.  I felt so sad for all of the patrons that would have been blessed with my performance of the most obnoxious karaoke song in existence.

Then we went back to the B&B and spent a luxurious night.  By luxurious, I obviously mean, it was free of crying, peed-through diapers and car alarms.

Unfortunately, I ruined my own ‘first night away’ experience by proceeding to wake up before 7 am the next morning…and not be able to go back to sleep.

Fortunately, my loving husband gladly awoke with me and was also ready to start the day.

My husband was not so excited about me poking him and talking to him until I had ensured he was just as awake as I was.

It was my birthday, dammit.  If my internal clock had me awake, he was going to have to endure it with me.

I think I am really going to come into my own ‘force of being’ in my 30’s.  I like this. Yeah.  I’m not taking crap from nobody anymore!

Alright, alright.  So he wasn’t trying to give me crap, per se.  So he just wanted to sleep a little past 7 since we didn’t have two little munchkins crying and crawling into bed with us.  Still.  I’m 30 now.  I’m not having it.  If I’m up, you’re up.  And we are going to enjoy this show called ‘River Monsters’ together, dammit!  (You’d be surprised at the limited programming available at 7 am on a Sunday morning on Cape Cod local television.)

After a fabulous breakfast, we headed back to my parents’ house to untie them from the chandelier.

My parents, that is.

Turns out, they had an extremely successful and fun night and morning with the boys.  No tears.  No bad behavior.  No nighttime crying.  No Time Outs.

Well, birthday or not, looks like we should make this regular little event!

It looks like 30 really is going to be a fantastic year!

ps.  I have heard several people mention lists of things you are supposed to do before you turn 30.  As usual, I procrastinated and didn’t think about that until now.  But I am thinking that there should also be a list of things that you should do once you turn 30.  Or, at least, in your 30’s in general.  Any suggestions?