Hitting the big three-oh

Conscious and sober once again, Paul Carter reflects on a milestone birthday

Well, somehow, I made it. Since I last put arms to keys for this column, I’ve been battling through a landmark moment in my life, and simultaneously mourning the premature demise of my youth. As hard it may be to believe, I was recently forced to bid farewell to my twenties and step – or more accurately, stagger and stumble while shouting at strangers – out of my twenties and into proper grown-upness. Me! An adult!

The gloom surrounding turning 30 had followed me around in the previous week like some sort of angry sidekick, gleefully kicking me in the back of the brain if I stopped thinking about it for more than 30 seconds. See? I subconsciously said 30. He’s still there, the git.

Needless to say, I couldn’t just sit back and pass into nolonger-a-young-person-hood without having some form of celebration. Or wake, as it felt like beforehand. This meant I could distract myself from the actual horror of the occasion by giving myself something equally stressful to fret over. My brain works in peculiar ways. Also, it meant the promise of copious amounts of alcohol.

The thing that caused the most stress once the day actually came around was the moment I realised that there would in fact be quite a few different circles of friends meeting each other for the first time. For quite a few of the people who were coming, this would be the first time they’ve ever been in a room with so many disabled people.

Now while I obviously don’t associate with anyone who would ever be deliberately offensive, there’s always that fear in the back of your mind that someone is going to drop some monumental faux pas or do something utterly inappropriate.

This was shown in the cards I got – several of my close friends got me cards that related to or made light of my height or lack of legs, which, incidentally, I found extremely funny.

But it did get me thinking how I’m happy with my friends saying stuff to me that I’d likely bite the ankles off a stranger for saying.

As it turned out, everything went incredibly smoothly, and seemingly a good time was had by all. I say seemingly, because I only actually remember the first hour and have relied on the testimony of others to piece together some form of memory of the rest of the evening.

True to form, that person who was probably going to do something hideously embarrassing was probably me. How very mature. Here’s to adulthood.