One thing I look forward to every year is my birthday.  Not that I relish being a year older, or even expect presents, but I enjoy getting as many of my friends as possible together and catching up.  Being generally friendly, I do have many friends from a variety of walks of life.  I invited over 120 people to my 21^st (although only about 40 actually turned up), I don’t think I invite quite so many these days – university offered more social opportunities than I have experienced since.  One thing I will say about my parties is that it is completely unpredictable as to who will turn up, how they will get along and what will happen at the end of the evening.

A few years ago I remember one of my friends at my birthday dinner going on a rant, that was supposed to be funny, about how she thinks that euthanasia should not only be available, but enforced, particularly on some of the people we knew.  I did giggle, until I realized listening across the table was one of my lovely lovely compassionate friends working as a nurse.  As someone who does all she can to ensure people live and live as comfortably as possible in their conditions, she was obviously not amused.  That was also the party where one girl I kind of tolerated came along unannounced with one of her friends I secretly hated and spent the whole evening flirting with a guy I was not quite over and had only broken up with a few weeks since.  Fortunately some friend from work came out with me after and helped me do my own flirting in a club that is now notorious for being a ground for some of the Broncos more lewd escapades. 

Last year one of my friends from church hit it off with one of my friends from uni and we all had our fingers crossed that when he offered her a lift home something would come of it…  …sadly it didn’t.  But we lived in hope and it kept us occupied for the evening.  They were both so lovely and it should have been a good match!

This year I was over the moon with those who did come to dinner and drinks, (along with some disappointment over those handing in their apologies).  There were so many people I hadn’t seen for such a long time and there were no huge clashes at all.  One of my friends from my previous job and her fiancé who has been overseas for ages had come back and came out with us as did one of my buddies who I lived in Japan with.  Fortunately one of my other political friend had lived in Japan so they were had that in common and the partner of one of the girls from work and one of my other friends from church were both in horticulture (that is actual horticulture, not the illegal activity that is sometimes called that as an euphemism).  A couple of other political friend turned up and kept R company and I was fortunate enough to have a few of my trusty old friends that stayed out with me until the wee hours of the morning but well before club curfews.  As I’m getting very old and decrepit it wasn’t very late and fortunately not too boozy.  The worst faux pas was one of my friend mentioning a desire to go “toy” shopping in front of one of my church friends, which is something I’m sure we’ll all live down and hopefully laugh about. 

I’m tempted to list every one who sat round the table sharing dinner together and say how wonderful they are, but I’m sure it will bore whoever is reading this.  The other thing that amazed one of my friends was at the end of the night we had enough money to pay the bill, give a tip and get another drink – every one was not just honest but had chipped in more than their share.  The friend who was amazed wanted to borrow my friends for her party as she wasn’t sure the same thing would happen.

Birthday aside, I’ve been thinking this week about how great most of my friends are (I’ve also caught up with a friend who moved out to Perth this week whilst I’ve been out here for work).  I am pretty lucky.  Over time I’ve also learned to be a bit more emotionally mature and stopped worrying about, or in some cases stopped including, people who are emotionally draining, high maintenance, unbalanced or just nasty.  Talking to my friend last night we were reflecting on how when we were both quite involved in politics (coupled with other things that were going on) life was a bit like a soap.  My friend’s life has had some other ups and downs and is only just settling down – mine is quite settled and stable for now.  (That being said I also had my fair share of drama in Japan, living in a small expat community).  The thing about soap operas, and real operas, is that they’re fun to watch.  Not so much fun to actually live through.  I’ve got a great group of people in my network at the moment, who give and expect support, can voice a variety of opinions and walk vastly different paths.  I treasure them all – whether they made it on Saturday or not J