Yesterday I turned 30. Was it an epiphanal first day of the rest of my life? Or am I entering some nightmarish alternate reality of "30 and The Single Woman?" The jury is still out, leaning away from nightmarish alternate reality, but it's true that the initial euphoria did wear off a little in the days that followed. However, at least the actual day was amazingly pleasant.
Some of the highlights of yesterday were suddenly being struck by every sign that had 30 in it—lots of 30 km speed limit signs in my neighborhood that I never noticed until yesterday. Another highlight was a French karaoke singer busking on the metro who serenaded me with Dock of the Bay (it’s about San Francisco) and sounded very little like Otis Redding—instead of a bluesman growl he had a French accent and exaggeratedly perfect annunciation: "SittinG on zee duck of zee baie..." I felt like that was a good metaphor for my recent trip to CA and seeing that my friends were happy but also that we’d changed a lot in different ways, which wasn’t bad, it was just that my old California doesn’t exist anymore. I haven't heard the American version of the Dock of the SF bay recently, but that’s ok, since my inspiration doesn’t lie there anymore. This is the cultural hybrid French version of California on the Paris metro and it’s my version of it now.
I feel good about 30, oddly enough, possibly because I’ve spent the whole rest of my life having existential crises. That has to count for something and give you a pass for what is arguably the most stereotypically traumatic age for a single woman.
To celebrate yesterday evening, I went out for drinks and dinner with some of my favorite people in the entire world, a lovely international group of ex-pats who struggle to make their lives here like I do, and I thought, there’s nowhere I’d rather be and no one I’d rather be with.
We had drinks and went out for Indian food near La Chapelle and then had 1 more glass of wine in Montmartre. It was really the perfect way to celebrate and I know after my trip to the states that I don’t want to live anywhere else; I’m glad Paris is my home. I texted my friends the day after to thank them for a perfect birthday evening and they texted back that it yes, it HAD been perfect, hadn’t it? This is why I love them all. They brought me thoughtful quirky presents (they absolutely didn’t have to) that were all things I realized I wanted without even knowing it until then-- from books about the metro to a French translation of a Dutch novel set in California to green eye shadow and they even smuggled a birthday muffin into the Indian restaurant and lit a candle on top.
I brought them each a rose the color of a sunset just to say that I’m so glad we’re all friends under the soleil-challenged gray Parisian skies. If you can’t be sentimental on your 30th birthday, when can you be?
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