As we age, birthdays become a thing of passing concern. Another year older? Maybe, but only a day older than yesterday. Aging becomes less exciting, more sobering. Rather than each day bringing us closer to our independence, each day is one day less to work on dreams and aspirations. One day more in the mundane.
Aging is not a bad thing and should not be frightening, but it certainly loses it's coolness somewhere around 25.
That does not mean, however, that we cannot take full advantage of said birthdays.
On April 13th, Zach reached a threshold. He turned 30. For him, again, it was of passing concern. He does not feel different, he does not feel suddenly useless to a world focused on youth and brevity. He's old, and he's okay with that.
I, however, felt the need to show his youth out the door with enthusiasm.
The planning began rather pathetically. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a good hostess. I am indecisive, easily stressed, and annoyingly thrifty. Simply not a good mix for a party planner. Nevertheless, I was determined to show Zach's youth a good time. While Zach's veteran expert party planning mother needed to intervene several times to avoid catastrophic faux pas, the end result actually wasn't too bad.
There was a small surprise party Easter weekend with just family to avoid detection of the real thing (which took lots of work nonetheless)(thanks Mom!). For the weekend of the actual party, Zach believed I was out of town with several other family members for a girls' weekend. He was to take Declan to a little community building in Mount Gretna for a kids' spring craft day. Luckily, he bought the whole story.
With everyone's willingness to help, the cars were parked down the street, there was a wonderful spread of food and drinks, great music and a slide show, and the decorations were fabulous. Thanks to the Archer family, we have great pictures as proof:
All in all, the party was a great time. I know I said this already while speechifying at the party, but I (we) owe so much to everyone who was there. A party just isn't a party without great guests, and we had the best. I'm feeling pretty darn lucky right now to know all of you.
And, even though I swore up and down while planning this thing that I would never do it again, it seems now that the pain was worth it.
