We gon’ party like it’s your birthday
🌟 Custom glittery Converse. I partly ordered these to wear for my birthday party last night (more on that later!) and partly to wear for the Taylor Swift concert I’m going to later this year. With the extra ‘lift’ and the comfort insoles, they’re so comfortable, and I really enjoyed having ‘party feet’. Let’s not talk about the slight trail of glitter I’ve been leaving behind me…
📕 A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske. This is the first of the The Last Binding series: gay Edwardian magicians, in a world that mostly looks like the one I recognise, with some complicated magical conspiracies going on - and I absolutely loved it! Highly recommend for some escapism, whether you’re normally a fantasy reader or not (I’m very much not). (Amazon | Blackwell’s - ad, affiliate links)
👟 Brooks Glycerin running shoes. I realised that one of the reasons I’ve not been enjoying running lately is that the newer version of the Adidas shoes I’ve been running in for a few years just didn’t work for my feet. So I picked up some new Brooks trainers in the January sale and I’m really enjoying how bouncy and light they are. Yesterday, I ran 5 km without a walk break for the first time in far too long (bearing in mind that before I first got Covid in September 2022, I was in half-marathon form and doing 10- and 11-mile long runs every weekend…), which makes me feel really proud of myself. I’m using
’s “Back to Running” training plan - it’s great!
You might have heard the phrase ‘30, flirty, and thriving’ - it’s what the protagonist of 13 Going On 30 desperately wants to be.
When I was 13 I had no idea what life as an adult would look like - but I think my 13 year old self would be happy with where I’ve ended up. Last night, I was joined by a huge number of lovely friends, some of whom had come from all over the country (two people even got on a plane for me!!!) to help me celebrate turning 30.
I ordered a giant Colin the Caterpillar cake from Marks & Spencer (M&S ‘food to order’ and their range of gift hampers are one of my best kept secrets), and, because I’m scared of lighters, one of my friends did the honours of lighting the candles for me.
Suddenly, I had a flashback to my 27th birthday, in deep lockdown. I made my cake (a small one, with two 6-inch round layers made to this recipe), lit the candle myself, and then blew it out. I hadn’t been in a room with another human for a month, and I think it was another two months until I would be again.
And now I could gather wonderful people together in a slightly sticky studenty pub (fun fact - I had turned 22 in that very room, on a night out with my course mates at uni!). It felt so special, and is a memory I know I’ll treasure for ever. I had even booked a karaoke pod, because my 30th birthday party felt like a great time to give it a go for the first time (my debut song: Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe.)
In the lead up to this big birthday I’ve been thinking about a personal project I’ve been calling ‘30 on purpose.’ Like a lot of people, I found my 20s tough - even leaving aside the whole ‘getting locked down alone while surviving a global pandemic’ thing. I’ve been very lucky to be continuously employed and housed (did I have a little bit of a crisis moment when I left work on Friday and realised I’ve essentially spent the whole of my 20s at the same employer…? Maybe…), but I spent a lot of the decade making things more difficult for myself than they needed to be, and learning how to work around my neuroses and brain-gremlins.
I’ve been really looking forward to this fresh-start. Unlike when I was turning 20, I’m confident in who I am (and who I’m not); I’ve got a professional specialism that I know is making the world a better place; I might not love my body all the time, but I love using it to run and dance and play; and, thanks at least partly to the lovely bunch of you who have signed up to get these newsletters, I’m feeling creatively empowered in my writing.
I’ve got a wonderful group of friends I’ve made along the way - last night, there were people from my high school days, from uni, from my old life in Edinburgh, and from summer camp, as well as family. Some of them were people I hadn’t seen in ages! If it takes a village to raise a child, it definitely takes a village to grow up into an adult - and that was my village. Some of them were people who, a year ago, I might have felt weird about inviting to my birthday party (how old am I? 8?), but I read a fantastic piece in Vox arguing for extending invitations to everyone you’d like to see more of, and it was so lovely to get that group together. As ever, they’re all my people, and so they tend to be each other’s sorts of people. As ever, there were a few people who couldn’t make it - for the kinds of reasons that remind me how important it is to grab time with our people when we can.
Back to 30 on purpose: I’m planning a year of posts, one a month over the year I’m 30, plus one after I turn 31 (which is the age my mum was when I was born - gulp!), to tell you about some of the things I’ve been doing and planning, and the things that happen through this year.
Speak soon,
Lily
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Sending very happy birthday wishes! I turn 40 this year and feel like I want a bit of a celebration.
Brooks are the best!