Last year, I did not celebrate my birthday. Or rather, I was not able to celebrate it. Shortly after corona turned from a simple flu virus into a serious pandemic, celebrating your birthday with family and friends was anything but a wise thing to do. This year is no different. Another lost birthday. This time not made impossible by a move or another major life event, but again by the coronavirus.
My 30th birthday
In 2020, it was the coronavirus. In 2019 it was the move to my house in Rotterdam. In 2018, it was the move to the new build house. To make up for my lost birthdays in recent years, I was planning to celebrate my 30th birthday in a big way. Somewhere outside. With family and friends. With wine. With music. With dancing late into the night. Small lanterns. The summer beach idea, but then in March. Just because it’s possible. But only in a world without the coronavirus.
I find it quite something: turning thirty. You leave ‘your youth behind you’ and reach the age where everyone expects you to be in a relationship, to be living together and, within a few years, to be bringing a couple of children into the world. I have my own views on that. But that is another story. The more I think about it, the more I realise that it doesn’t really matter whether you are 29, 30 or 37. Because, what is the difference?
From big party to a ‘normal birthday’
The idea that I would be celebrating my birthday with a big party this year, I already put out of my head a few months ago. As long as the coronavirus is holding us in its grip, that is simply not an option. So instead, I had planned to be in the Netherlands on my birthday (a Friday), to see my parents and some friends and then fly back to my boyfriend at the weekend to celebrate my birthday in Ibiza. But even that turned out to be a no go. A few hundred euros for a plane ticket, three coronavirus tests and then seeing my mum OR dad (because only one person is allowed to visit) is not really the kind of birthday that I have in mind. As much as I would have liked it, rationality wins.
I will just stay 29 for a little longer
Although it is not quite the birthday I had in mind, I am going to make it a fun day! Together with my boyfriend, some friends on the island and with my parents via Skype. We already did that a few weeks ago for my father’s birthday, so we know how it works by now. Since Monday, the terraces here are open again, until 17:00 though, and in my head I have already plotted a whole route. First a small piece of cake at Samos, then a late breakfast at Project Social, followed by a pizza diavolo for a late lunch at our favourite pizzeria in Santa Gertrudis and then a walk in nature, with a pink doughnut from Mercadona as desert. And then in the evening we prepare a nice dinner by ourselves. To top it all off, we will have a whole weekend to ourselves afterwards!
Today I celebrate the fact that I have turned 29 years and 365 days. That 30th birthday will come another time when it is possible again, with a big party! 😉