20 years

On Sunday 21st September 1997, I got married.

I’d planned not to turn up if it was raining because it would have been a bad omen. Luckily (or unluckily) it wasn’t raining and i was there. My dad insisted we got to the church early: Always a rebel.

My mum asked me if I wanted a big wedding or a deposit on a house. I love being the centre of attention. There wasn’t really any doubt. I wanted the party. I’d planned on filing for divorce after two weeks.

Twenty years!!!

Not bad for someone who only got married for the party.

So much has changed in twenty years.

In 1997 the internet was seven years old. Still a baby. Still largely ignored by non-geeks. I remember going to Tesco and asking if they did internet shopping and they looked at me like I was stupid.

In 1997, Mark Zuckerberg was thirteen!! My son is thirteen (and yes, I can totally imagine him changing the entire way we live. In fact, I’m counting on it: he’s my retirement plan). Mark Zuckerberg didnt even start university till 2002 (I looked it up!)

My grandpa used to tell me that no one would ever see as significant changes as he had seen in his lifetime. Turns out, our lives are totally reinvented in twenty years now, not seventy. The education system is being designed based on it (I know, I went on a course; I love a course)

My daughter just told me she couldn’t understand how I could have been a child without an iPad.

In 1997, terrorists like the IRA phoned the authorities to warn them of a bomb so that no one would ACTUALLY get hurt.

In 1997 you could take a container full of toiletries onto the plane and the smoking area was at the back.

In 1997 you “sort of knew” Uncle Bob’s friend Jim was not really ‘just’ his friend but you just didn’t mention it.

In 1997, I was 22. That’s only five years older than my oldest child is now.

I tell my kids that they arent allowed a tattoo until they are at least thirty when they know their own mind and can make sensible life long decisions. Who on earth let me get married at 22?

I didnt feel like a grown up till I was forty.

They say life begins at forty.

I certainly think forty was a turning point in my life.

I remember my mums fortieth birthday and I remember thinking she was the most amazing person in the whole world; the cleverest, most sensible person I knew, a doctor, the head of the family, practically a single mother of three children, a bank, my hero, my idol. She spoke: people listened (or at least I thought they did).

What was I doing when I was forty?

I was burned out, career number one over; I was unemployed (Or rather a stay-at-home mum); I had six kids (practically on Jeremy Kyle); I was on long term medication for depression; I had (have) a shopping addiction.

And a sudden realisation that this is it.

I’m a grown up.

I haven’t a clue what I’m doing.

Actually no one in the whole wide world really knows what they’re doing.

Not even those in charge of the world know what they’re doing.

We’re all just winging it.

I still loved a party. Everyone loves an excuse get together with friends and loved ones surely? So I’d planned a year of celebrations. A party for friends, a party for close family, a party for extended family, a party for my jewellery making friends, a party for my stay-at-home mum friends. An end of year summary party. A year of parties. I would be the reason for my extended family to get together that wasn’t a funeral. It would be awesome. I would be thanked and be the centre of everything.

Instead I got a year of “I’m sorry, I’m busy that day”; “I’d love to come if I’d been free but I’ve got something else planned”; “Sorry, its a bit too far for us”; “That sounds cool. Hope you have fun, but I can’t come”.

It was a turning point in my life.

No one cares.

Everyone has their own lives. Their own parties to plan. You’re the centre of your own universe but no one else’s. You’re not special. You’re a small small tiny insignificant piece in an entire universe.

No. One. Cares.

(That’s unfair, a few people did come to celebrate. And we had a brilliant time. But they were intimate events, not the major, centre of attention events I’d envisaged in my head)

In 1997, I was like every other child: I thought I was destined for greatness. I thought it was only a matter of time before I was Chief Executive of a FTSE100 company, Prime Minister or running an empire of parents at my children’s school and everyone would need my opinion to make a decision. In fact, I really wanted all three. At the same time.

Dream big? Not me. I dreamed gargantuanally. (I might have made that word up that’s how much bigger I dreamed.)

Now, here I am at 42 realising no one takes me seriously at all. My opinions are ignored at best; scoffed mostly. Raise your hand if you even read this far. Chief Executive of Nic Danson; Prime Minister of me; Empire of one.

In 1997 I was young, madly in love and thought I had the world at my feet.

Twenty years later and the world seems bigger and i feel smaller, older and more tired. Seems this is “it” and I’mexpected to be grateful. 

2015 was supposed to mark the beginning of three special years: my 40th, Doug’s 50th and our 20 year wedding anniversary. Instead it was the dawning of a new era. An apocalyptic era. 2016 has to be one of the worst in my life. Dad narrowly escaping death, Rhys dying and Doug losing his job. It’s like the world has been shouting at me “Grow the f**k up, Nic!”.

When I was growing up my mum ignored her wedding anniversary. My dad forgot. But my mum said it wasn’t for other people to think of.  It was something to celebrate between husband and wife. It wasn’t something others should have a passing thought of. Us children were discouraged from acknowledging it. I don’t even know the date of my parents wedding (although I’ve recently learned there are actually two: an official one and a real one when they eloped; which is soooo coool! But I still don’t know either one).

Celebrating an anniversary is for the two people for whom it matters. It’s for two people who are still best friends and want to celebrate the birth of their life together. It’s for those who started as two people and have grown into one family unit. Its for two people to mark another year of challenges that have brought them closer together.

In 1997, I was young and absolutely loved that Doug looked after me. Now im old but wondering when I will be old enough to look after myself. 

In 1997, we were two people who couldnt do anything, make a decision or leave the house without each other. Now our lives are so full we have barely been in the house at the same time for a long time. 

In 1997, I was planning a big family and Doug didnt have an opinion either way (not that I asked). Now Doug has put his foot down “no more babies” and I’m left listening to the deafening thump, thump, thump of my biological clock.

In 1997, Doug and I were planning our lives together. Now we are planning our “conscious uncoupling”.

So if you’re the one person who has read this far, don’t tell me to have a Happy Anniversary, just say “have a Thursday”. Fridays are always better, right?

Twenty years.

But I’ve got at least twenty left.

Right?

Oh my God, twenty years left? How much worse can it get?