Happy & Healthy

DIRTY THIRTY DIARY #2

The what to wear to where dilemma

Okay, I’ve come to terms with my thirty (read here how that went down). And now, how do you celebrate it? No idea. You would think it’s a no-brainer, since my birthday is on October 31. That’s Halloween written all over the place. You’d think, right? But my loved ones have a brotherly dislike for dressing up (they only do that on principle during carnival and then in an extremely traditional way). If I want them to show up, I can’t expect that from my angry little head.

By the way, it all went completely wrong with the save the date. Normally, I send that thing out at the end of September or the beginning of October. But yeah, I was chilling with my butt on a Greek beach. I thought I wouldn’t forget, just before I forgot. The plane landed at Schiphol and then it was relax time bye bye, obligations mode on and that’s when the big forgetting really began. I sent out that save the date ten days before my birthday in the digital mailboxes. That lovely mailbox post in my head was a big fat exit. Yes, and if you send an invite with that much delay, you get serious cancellations (even if they like you). But there’s still quite a bit of fun stuff left, so I have to celebrate. In the context of my residence in Brabant, I did it once in a bourgondian way. Think: big table, creamy spreads, and lots of bread topped with kilos of sour meat. Sounds gross, but it wasn’t. And because I also really want some sun on my birthday, I planned the festivities in August. Barbecue, cocktails, and fluff, that kind of thing. You can celebrate it if you like, right?

But yeah, thirty, you either deny it or celebrate it big. I think. But how then?

But yeah, thirty, you either deny it or celebrate it big. I think. But how then? I’m a sucker for locations that look a bit frivolous in photos, but it also has to be cozy. In the most ideal situation, I want the outside of a trendy tent with the heart of a brown pub. And you know just like I do that this is a utopia. A brown pub feels so incredibly heartwarming simply because it’s a brown pub. And something is bizarrely instagrammable because of that hipness. Dilemma one.

But the venue isn’t the only thing that stresses me out. At thirty, you’re supposed to transcend yourself in being stylish. For a woman, this is the age to shine, because then you’re dressed your best ever. No pressure, huh?

I secretly get a bit sad about this, because how is it supposed to be with the rest of my life? Care for later, because first things first: what do I wear? Dilemma two. I need to look good, but casually good. In the morning, I stand in front of a mirror for a maximum of ten minutes, so I don’t want to be in glam mode now. The idea is that I turn thirty as Adeline. A little 2.0 is okay (make that 3.0), but no gimmicky scene. And then you get the hassle of that location, that’s everything. In a brown café, you want to blend in nicely with the rest, but at an A-location, you pull off a haute look from that cash register.

Sigh. I think it’s going to be a haute lookie, with pastel-colored pom-poms in a browner than brown pub. I’ll order the snacks from that amazing Italian caterer and they’ll probably taste amazing with a glass of Paradise by the dashboard light.