Dirty Thirties?

I'm turning 30 on Monday, and so I thought I would broach the subject of ageing. Now, I'm usually quite funny about getting old, and recall quite clearly my 10th birthday. I had an awesome birthday party, with a clown and games and the works. And I was having a ball until someone said to me, 'You're double figures now, no more single figure birthdays.' Well. I went to my room and cried and cried, grieving for the loss of my single figure years. My god, soon I would be sprouting pubes and growing tits and being expected to act like a grown up. The shame and horror of it all! (As it turns out, it wasn't long before I started longing for these things, and was unlucky enough to be a 'late bloomer'. If only I'd known that on my tenth birthday!) So, you are thinking, how on earth is she coping with the big three oh? It isn't my birthday yet, so I guess I can't truly say how I feel until the day arrives. But it's only a couple of days away. (Cue Jaws music, der nen der nen der nen...) And I have to say, I'm kind of excited about it! I guess birthdays force you to do a mental checklist of how much you have lived your life to date. And when I think about it, my checklist is looking pretty good! I've been a fridge mechanic, an employment consultant, worked at a record label, been a dive instructor, a massage therapist and many many more fascinating jobs. I've roamed the mass expanse of desert in Australia and everywhere in between many times, I've lived on a luxury catamaran in Tahiti for a month, I've lived amongst the rainforest, I've lived right on a tropical beach where crabs walked past my window, I've lived on a dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef, I've lived on a hill looking out over the ocean. I've shagged my way through some of the most beautiful specimens in Australia, and many from other continents as well! I've had passionate relationships inbetween these shags, each of them changing the way I view the world and myself. I have met the man of my dreams and fallen in love with him on the reef, in the tropical Whitsundays. Not only that, but I have married him on a tropical beach in Vanuatu with all my closest friends and family around me. I've swam with sharks, turtles, eels, barracudas, stingrays, manta rays, dolphins, and so close to whales that their song vibrated through my body. I've held snakes, crocodiles, owls, sugar gliders, and many more. I've been up close to dingoes, wallabies, kangaroos, wombats, and many many more! I've patted a white rhino, I've hand fed dolphins.



Now that I think about it, I'm surprised I'm not exhausted! Maybe I need to settle down, stay in the one job for awhile, and save some money? The only thing that truly scares me about turning 30 is the thought of breeding. You see, my body clock is not ticking. At all. I like kids, I enjoy watching them learn and grow, but I definitely don't want the little bastards living with me! I suspect that children are the biggest lie in society. I believe other mothers only tell you it's awesome so they can suck you into joining them in their misery. I don't see how stretching your vagina beyond natural boundaries, to give birth to something that wakes you every 3 hours, so you can feed it and then scrape that food off their arse a few hours later as stinky baby shit, so they can tell you they hate you thirteen years later, is fun? I do have one friend who is a little more honest with me about motherhood. On one ocassion she grasped me by the lapels and urged, 'Sarah, DON'T HAVE CHILDREN. You will get stuck here like me, and you will have no life, and no freedom.' Hm. And more recently she advised me of the best time to have children. 'Have them as late as you can, put it off. Wait til you're, like, fifty!' So, the only thing I don't like about turning 30 is the fact that my body clock will soon kick in, I will be betrayed by my own body into giving birth, and I will spend the rest of my life paying for it. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? What a cold, hard cow! I'm sure I will love the stinky, vomiting little skin sacks, by the time they come, but for now I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the DIRTY THIRTIES is not a rumour! Brace yourself husband, brace yourself!!!!!