Friends with extraordinary benefits

I have something of a milestone birthday this week. It is my third ever birthday with a '0' on the end. I am firmly in the camp of acknowledging, enjoying and celebrating birthdays. I like cake quite a lot and consider my birthday one of the best annual occasions to indulge. I know lots of people prefer to let birthdays pass without fuss and others who dislike the opportunity they present to assess another year gone by. 


As you know I don't restrict myself to birthdays to review – often critically – where I'm at, and I suppose one upside of this arrangement is that I tend not to beat myself up on my birthday. Instead I choose to eat cake. Which I intend to do this year with appropriate gusto.


As the day has approached I have been thinking about the first three decades of my life quite a bit and something stood out among my thoughts that I wanted to touch on. I have one very minor regret about my wedding day a couple of years ago. I chose to speak on that occasion and there was one sentiment I didn't express to a group of people in the room that I wish I had. As it's something I think and feel often, I thought I'd use the excuse of this birthday to share it.


I'm no artist but if I imagine my life as a picture, without a particular cluster of people, it would still make a perfectly lovely drawing. But with the inclusion of this cluster the picture is infinitely brighter, more vivid and more alive. Those responsible for so much colour and joy are the people whom I'm lucky enough to count as my friends. To whom I am indebted and grateful for everything they have added to my thirty years. 


They are mostly women, some whom I've known for almost two decades and others far less. Together they are the brightest bunch of people I know; they are all kinds of smart, funny, kind and driven. Some I see often and many, because of distance, I don't see nearly enough. But their effect is the same. They have provided my life with so much more fun, laughter and enjoyment than I could ever have mustered on my own.


Over the years there has been plenty of support, advice, counsel and conversation but invariably when I think of the girls I count as close friends, it is the laughter I remember and treasure the most. I actually wrote in my very first blog post that I consider female friendship to be one of life's blessings. To the lovely girls who have extended their friendship in my direction over the years and made me recognise it as a source of real joy, thank you!! Please know how much I adore, admire and appreciate you. Sadly, I won't have you all in a room anytime soon but rest assured when I eat cake tomorrow you will be in my thoughts.


I have two questions today. How do you approach birthdays? And, or, who do you appreciate in your life that might not know it?