So last weekend I had my fortieth birthday celebration. It was a huge 2 night get together in an old converted caravan park in Ballan, and it was a ripper weekend. With a list of 100 new friends, old friends, lifelong friends, family (all three – mine, Trenton’s and Dales’s…) and everything in between, I was surrounded by my people. The one’s that have pulled me through the toughest times, that have stuck with me through thick and thin, that have seen me at my best and my worst, and yet were still there to have a beer with while I celebrated reaching such a landmark age. It was an absolutely fantastic birthday. I kept looking in awe at these incredible people that I have collected in my 40 years on Earth, and man, do I have an eclectic bunch of friends!!!? Since a very young age I had friends that came from everywhere. You could say that I collected people! I went to five schools, including four high schools in four years, and I had representatives from at least three of them at my birthday bash. To be able to say that I have hung onto some of these people for 25 plus years feels amazing. Having people that have known you that long is a wonderful feeling. They have watched me grow, live, love, have children, struggle, lose my Love, then my shit, then my grip on reality, regain my shit, love again, struggle, regain my grip on reality and then feel every other emotion in between that is available to us as human beings. They have really just watched me live. I felt so blessed to look around at different times on this weekend and remember how I had met each and every person, and what they had bought to my life, and what I hoped I had bought to theirs…. friendship is the ultimate blessing, without it one cannot survive the shit that life likes to throw at you sometimes…. Thank you universe for these wonderful people!!!! 40 years….. it’s a landmark that I have waited in anticipation for since Trenton died. I am now three years older than he will ever be, and I felt in some way that I was celebrating it for the two of us. To me, it was also a celebration of family…. what I would do without them I don’t even know. My kids were there on Friday, and waltzed around from group of friends to group of friends, all adored honorary Uncles and Aunties to them, as much as our own blood relatives. I looked at Trenton’s, mine and Dale’s family all intermingling incredibly, and I was in awe of what this crazy old life had thrown at these people. I watched on and wondered how they’d embraced my new living arrangements, and each other, not only a little bit, but in fact, quite a lot. Loss can do the most horrid things to people, but if you wait long enough, and work at it constantly, it can all come back to you, and possibly better than you’d ever hoped for. I will never let these people out of my life, not ever. The Saturday was a kid free affair, and at one point I looked around and saw little groups of people from each stage of my entire life. From my very naughty early high school years and my later high school friends that both provided some of my absolute closest mates on earth, to ex lovers that are now best friends, to my hippy travelling days, to the mates that had help fill my life with music for as long as I can remember, to my hubby’s best mates that are still my best mates, to the House of Fool’s connections from my singing days, to my work friends that have helped keep me in a job through the loss of my beautiful husband and beyond, to my Weirdo’s (from my widow and widower support group) through which I would never have met if it wasn’t for the loss of my beautiful husband, nor survived it to be truthful…. to my hills family and the wonderful friends that I have met through Dale…. and of course anyone else that I have overlooked. You are all my strength, my reason for keeping on pushing through life’s little challenges, and my happiness. I adore you all!!!! So I do hope that I got around to chatting and having a drink with each and every one of you, but if I didn’t, I will make it up to you I swear. Regardless, it wouldn’t have been the same without any of you being there. On the Monday afterwards, I officially finished my final day at Uni. Over six years I obtained two certificates, a Diploma and now a Degree in Community Services Work and I am incredibly humbled to be able to say that I have finally at the ripe old age of 40 gotten the education that I wanted so desperately straight out of high school in 1995, but instead I chose to travel.. and I can assure you whole heartedly, that I have no regrets there whatsoever! I started my seven weeks full time placement on the Wednesday and then on the Thursday (my official birthday) I stayed home with a sick Rubes, and finished my third last assignment ever….. after a wonderful dinner at The Pig n Whistle with close friends that night, I fell into bed utterly exhausted at the week that was. At one am Rubes came in doubled over in pain, and by two we had a locum around. He immediately demanded we go to the hospital, and we were there until Saturday eveing having a million tests done! Arghhhhh…. always when you are hanging on by a thread for a decent nights sleep…. Murphy’s law. Anyway, on the Friday they were sure it was appendicitis, and told me they had her booked in for surgery that arvo. I demanded an ultrasound and some further testing to at least discount that it may be reproductive organ related as she is a bloody female, and so they did so instead of going and invasively whipping her appendix out on a whim. This bought us another night of waiting unfortunately, and after two lost test results, notes that were not written down, and 6 different attempts at getting cannula’s into her veins, she was beyond it completely. By two pm on the Saturday, the same surgeon that was going to remove her appendix, came back in to say that there was fluid “somewhere”, and an infection “somewhere”, but they were more leaning towards the fact that it wasn’t appendicitis now….. WTF???? Then I got the spiel about the fact that one in five suspected appendicitis cases come back as “inconclusive” and we were one of the lucky five!!!!! Woah… what a start to our weekend. We missed our trip to Omeo that Dale and I had been planning for weeks (he still went with the new van and the four youngest kids on the Saturday morning, poor bugger…..) and we waited till five pm to be told the surgery wasn’t happening so we actually could have gone!!!! Never a dull moment in our household… so instead we have hung around at my folks place recovering, I have uploaded my final assignment (hopefully ever) and I am just grateful that Rubes is okay, the rest of the family are having a wonderful trip in the mountains, and that my degree is almost completely behind me!!!!! Life at 40, it’s already pretty interesting! Thanks for listening. xoxoxoxox
