8. Send It Szn
I turned 30 in October and it was great, actually
For the last few years I had been living as if my twenties were already over, the way we consider the year a write-off once we reach October. I had figured my wild years were behind me; the night was for the young, and I was already old. Leaving the function at a sensible hour and avoiding hangovers was the done thing, but was it what my heart wanted? Was it simply a pattern I had slipped into? I didn’t miss the messiness of my early twenties, but was I edging towards a world in which I spent more time laughing at old escapades rather than embarking on new ones?
With myself and so many friends born in 1994, we were staring down the barrel of back-to-back 30ths. It felt like there would be no better year to turn up and turn it on than 2024.
Send it szn requires a few things: dedication, spontaneity, an open mind, and a liberal attitude towards one’s finances. It is not for the faint of heart either. You may find yourself (David Byrne voice) ordering an Uber to YahYahs after the pub shuts. You may find yourself surrounded by twenty-year-olds dancing to “retro music” from 2010. You may find yourself ordering a round of $18 jägerbombs for all of your friends with the slow-dawning knowledge that few will ever pay you back. (Disclaimer: this did not happen to me, but it happened to a friend. Consider it a cautionary tale.) But despite how it might sound, there’s more to send it szn than being a 365 party girl. Honestly, it’s mostly about showing up.
A couple of weeks ago, I got to celebrate my own 30th birthday. I threw a party at a bar with a tab and a cake with my face on it (N.B: the face cake was not a request, but rather a thrilling surprise courtesy of Gabrielle McLeod - coincidentally, I believe she is the genius responsible for coining “send it szn”.) My fear was that hardly anyone would turn up. Maybe the novelty of turning 30 had gotten old for people?
Instead, I found myself in a room full of the people I love, including friends from high school I hadn’t seen in months or even years, several generations of gorgeous life-enriching housemates, work friends and film friends and uni friends and friends of friends and partners of friends. The night ended as all good nights do: at KBox, me about 15 drinks deep, forcing everyone to sit through yet another rendition of 99 Luftballons.
Staying home is so easy. It’s comfortable, safe, and undeniably cheaper. But - sorry - it’s also boring. At home on the couch with our phones is not where life happens. And not all life can happen before a reasonable bedtime.
You know what? If somebody invites you to their party, and you can go, then I think you should go. I really do believe there is no nicer present you can give to a person. (Fighting every fibre of my being not to do a presence/presents pun here.) I feel I am an expert on this, because everyone who stepped into that bar on my birthday made me feel completely and utterly cherished and lucky, and I think everyone deserves to feel that. Especially your friends.
My twenties were wonderful and challenging, as they are for most. I lost two years to lockdowns, slipped in and out of a few cheeky depressions, and battled the crippling mix of imposter syndrome and perfectionism that may still come to define my life. I started as a 20-year-old uni student who thought they would make feature films by the time they were thirty, and ended up as an eternally-emerging screenwriter and tutor and escape room gamemaster. I made brilliant friends, visited over thirty countries, won a car (then sold a car), found my partner, got a dog, lived in four sharehouses, moved back home, made four short films, became friends with my parents, and cut off my hair and grew it all back again multiple times over. Of course I am sad to say goodbye to such a full decade of life (and freaked out by the increasing speed at which time seems to pass as we age! Ha Ha Ha!) At the same time, being 30 seems to have some pretty good reviews so I’ll keep you posted.
By the way, send it szn is not over. One of my best friends gets married in three weeks, and then I am off to Japan, and then, and then. This year has taught me that there is no end to anything, no phase of life that cannot be revisited, no cutoff or deadline for being a silly sausage (if being a silly sausage is what you want to be.) I know this to be true, because I truly believed that I would never visit YahYahs again. But then…
So, might I encourage you to embrace “send it szn” also? To be a little bit silly, spend long late nights saying yes, ordering tequila sodas and fireball shots, honouring friends on the dancefloor and in karaoke booths, and sending off your twenties in the manner we come crashing into them: chaotic and open and thrumming with life.