How To Tackle Your Birthday

Bury your head in cake, not sand.

Geeze, birthdays are fraught aren’t they. Aside from the getting older bit, there’s the admin. Meshing friendship groups and family, finding somewhere to celebrate, all that attention, the weirdness of presents or no presents. Going low key or big fuss - just as long as it doesn’t look or feel like a big fuss. It’s all just a lot.

Each year when my birthday rolls around, I fret like we all do about who to invite and what to do and where to go and if anyone gives a shit. But in the end, I’m always glad I did something, even if it’s tiny. No birthday should go uncelebrated in my opinion, even if that celebration is taking yourself out for scrambled eggs and a pedicure. And after the years we’ve all had, well, we may as well make the most of the occasion, we are lucky to be alive to see another wild 365, after all.

I turned 34 a couple of weeks ago, a pretty flaccid number in terms of milestones. To layer in another layer of meh, it fell on a Tuesday, not the most glam day of the week. …