NORMAL LIFE: Thoughts At 30!

There's not one person in the world who hasn't felt that a special birthday, be it a 30th, 40th, 50th or beyond, has crept up on them suddenly. Reaching thirty, however, has come as no surprise to me. I've been so busy, that it feels somewhat relieving to be thiry.

I do, however, feel somewhat embittered as every other day at work, I'm asked for money to celebrate someone's marriage, somebody's leaving-the-company gift or to celebrate the arrive of a colleague's newborn. It's a constant reminder that I am different to other people; if I were straight, I would probably adapt quite well into this giving and receiving culture, but when it's give, give, give all the time I'm like bloody hell.

On the whole, however, life is good! My health has been really bad this winter, but otherwise I'm fortunate because I have a loving family, some great friends and a partner who adores me! If I were to look back and rate my first thirty years on a scale of 1 to 10, I would probably opt for somewhere between 8 and 9 so I can't complain, can I? I've been fortunate to travel and have been living abroad more than five years already. I'm holding down a decent job, living a far-from-typical life which adds to the sense that I certainly haven't wasted any time. To the contrary, I feel I have lived.

The weekend started already on Friday after work with the thus far unrelated celebrating of a colleague who was leaving the company. At Helsinki University's Botanical Gardens, sixty or so of us gathered to give our colleague a good send off. All was going well until Popeye (read here) began to object to my use of English, especially having lived in Finland for five years. It astonishes me how predictable this kind of verbal abuse is for it occurs at every party I go to. It's got to a stage now where I am actually starting to feel guilty for not speaking Finnish, preferring to speak English.

After my encounter with Popeye, I asked another colleague if she minded speaking English with me. She said she loves speaking English and, despite being a native Finn herself, thinks it's sensless that somebody is foreigners are learning Finnish, pointing out that 'we live in a Global world'! So, on the one hand, I was offended for not speaking Finnish while, on the other hand, I was getting no credit for the fact that I am the only English-speaker in my original class who has managed to get to Level 3 of 6!

Anyway, the evening drew on and I met some wonderful people. Come 10pm, the party at the Botanical Gardens was starting to close down and a group started to make their way to one of the newest nightclubs in the centre of town; I reluctantly entered the establishment since Bree and I had agreed to meet up after 11pm for a pre-birthday celebration. We entered at the nightclub via the lift, which transported us to the Sixth floor of the recently opened Kamppi shopping centre. We arrived at an impressively laid out nightclub, accommodating just a handful of patrons at this early hour. We were guided to two VIP areas, each one seating approximately ten people.

One colleague approached me, asking for €30 (£20); apparently, champagne and a bottle of gin (yuck!) had been ordered for sharing. I was thinking to myself: someone is leaving the company, isn't it a bit offending to consider it a champagne moment? I explained I had no cash with me, but I had a credit card. No problem, he said, just come to the bar with me. First, however, I paid a quick trip to the toilet.

As I stood their doing my business, all these thoughts were going through my: isn't is just downright cheeky to ask me to pay €30 at a colleague's leaving party? Without any disrespect, she isn't even a friend of mine! After all the charity I have given these last few months for new babies, people's marriages and people leaving the company, I decided to take a stand.

What I did was this: I left the toilet and rejoined my colleagues, but at the same time I pretended to suddenly recognise someone in the crowd of people. I pointed my finger towards the non-existent friend, heading towards the exit at the same time. Checking to see that no-one had noticed, I just collected my jacket and did a runner! About thirty minutes later, having told this story to countless people already in a gay bar, I got a text message from my colleague (the one who was leaving), asking where I was. I felt a bit guilty, but explained how I had been seduced in the toilets! It was our mutual birthdays and she just wanted to wish me happy birthday - this did nothing to ease my guilt.

Perhaps I was wrong to leave like that, but I just couldn't understanding the willingness of these people to dish out €30/head. It was bizarre, watching them all fiddle with their wallets and purses for the sake of a glass of champagne and some gin! How pathetic! Furthermore, I have never bought into the superficiality of the whole VIP thing.

This hadn't set a good start to the evening for, in the gay bar where Bree and I downed celebratory drinks for my birthday, something else was going on. Earlier this year, I had embarked on what I called 'ditching season', a period of time whereby I had assessed the relationships I had with people and done away with the energy suckers and users I seem to be very effective at attracting! One of them happened to be Joshua.

Joshua was in the bar - I noticed him - and his two croney's - a couple of times who, prior to the split, were in regular contact with me also. As the three of them made their way around the bar, they deliberately ignored me and this only further enhanced the decision I had made to stop talking to them in the first place. Offer them free alcohol or invite them to a party and they'll be my friends again, we joked!

It was turning out to be a hell of an evening - first there was Popeye verbally abusing me for not speaking Finnish, then there was an attempt by another colleague to extract €30 from me for drinks I did not want and now I was being ignored by three people who, this time last year, were good friends of mine. Despite all this, I actually felt good about the situation: these were all examples where I had actually stood up for myself. Beside me was Bree and that was all that mattered!

We got home about 3am - Bree had warned me that we needed to be up and out of the house by 10am for his 'surprise'. My headed span as I tried to sleep, the negative elements of the evening fast becoming yet another memory that would remain in the chapter titled 'first 30 years of my life'.

When I woke up the next morning, Bree rose from the bed and raised the blinds, the blue sky blinding my still-tired, slightly hungover eyes. I got out of bed and headed for the kitchen, to be greeted with hot coffee and cake, and a pile of cards and yet-to-be-opened presents! I opened my cards one by one and was particular touched by the one sent by my Grandmother; we are not particularly close, but the message in her card somewhat said it all as if though she knew me quite deeply. It read:-

You truly are a lovely Grandson who deserves
All the love and happiness that this birthday can bring
It isn't really surprising that such a bright little boy
Has grown into someone to love and feel so proud of
You have always been special and that's something
That will never change.

These words really hit some buttons, my eyes filling with water. Somehow, I managed to fight the deluge; firstly, there was the reference to the 'little boy'. To this day, despite the magical restoration of my hearing, I often feel like that little deaf boy that felt like he wasn't being listened to, who used to spend all of his free time playing on his own. I took the reference to the fact that I am 'special' and 'that's something that will never change' to mean that my Grandmother was expressing her suspicion that I am gay. I somehow sense that my Grandmother chose this card very carefully as if to say that everything was okay.

Anyway, we drank the coffee and I ate the remainder of my slice of cake, packed an overnight bag and we were on our way. Two hours later, we pulled into the car park of the five-star Naatali Spa Hotel. We checked in just before 1pm, just minutes before a 45-minute full body massage Bree had pre-booked; it was heaven! Afterwards, we checked into our luxurious room at the Sunborn Yacht Hotel where, totally exhausted from the massage, we collapsed into bed. We napped for a couple of hours, waking up just in time for our second treatment: a face peel! At first, I thought Bree was taking the piss. I'm only 30!

An hour later, having fell asleep during the fifteen minute relaxation period, my face having been scrubbed, peeled and masked, I felt like a new man. We made our way back to the hotel room in our bathrobes, ready to pop the cork from a bottle of Moet we had left on ice. Yummy! I felt myself getting a bit woozy so we laid off the booze, choosing instead to go to the Paradise Pool, taking a sauna and enjoying the sun's unusually bright rays in the outdoor section of the pool. It was just wonderful!

Back in the hotel room, it was nearly 6pm and, finishing off the remaining Champagne, we showered and prepared for dinner. Life onboard the 'boat' (which is in fact artificial and therefore has no engine) was very quiet so we crossed the jetty and headed towards the main building. There, we were disappointed to find that the Thai restaurant was fully booked so we settled instead for a Ranch-style dinner, tucking into Steak and Pork Ribs.

During the dinner, we actually settled into a very serious discussion, which was kicked off with Bree's question: how does it feel to be 30? Sharing some of my frustrations about life in general and how powerless I feel in certain situations, I deduced that there's three things I need to work on: my general confidence in the workplace; controlling my anger/temper; and learning to ignore unimportant things. All three of these issues stem, I believe, from the fact that I am a foreigner trying to make a mark in a foreign environment and that I face daily challenges that someone in their home country might not face.

After the dinner, we went for a walk and it finally hit me just how silent the place was; it was truly a place for relaxation, a place for reflection and indulging in life's pleasures. Having foregone dessert, we headed to a bar onboard the 'boat' and order Irish Coffees before slumping into bed; at just 10pm, I guess I was starting to show my age!

We woke up the next morning bright and early, the weather a carbon copy of that from the day before! It was exceptional for an April weekend in Finland to have such wonderful weather with temperatures reaching 19ºC. After breakfast, there was another treatment: a 90-minute foot treatment. Having bathed my feet in warm water first, the young girl proceeded to remove hard skin from my feet before working on my toenails. Afterwards, she used a mask to stimulate my feet before letting them be for fifteen minutes. Again, I fell asleep and, when the young girl returned and started to unwrapped my feel (which had been wrapped up in warm towels), it felt like my feet weren't mine!

Shortly after our treatments ended, it was time to check out. I couldn't believe it; it was an anticlimax that would mar the rest of the day for it marked the beginning of the end of a milestone birthday. We checked out, but crept back in to use the pool and jacuzzi one last time. Bree enjoyed it so much that, once again, he fell into one of his I'm-so-relaxed modes where everything he said was somewhat slurred!

When we finally left and ss the Sunborn Yacht Hotel faded into the distance, it was time to look forward. I sometimes refer to those in their thirties as being in the 'Decade of Responsibility' because people in their thirties usually start to make some pretty big decisions. I started to wonder: what's in store for me?