- December 25, 2024
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Another year, another birthday. Every birthday since college, my friends and I have remarked that we are getting old. For the last couple years I have been celebrating the anniversary of my 25th birthday. I’m saddened to think that my years of being a 20-something are coming to a close; but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I’m still only 27. It’s not like I’m 30.
While 30 is still an acceptably young age, young enough to be in YPG, I can’t help to remember my child-self having all these plans for my life by the age of 30. After all, to an 8-year-old, 30 is ancient.
Lucky for me, one of my best friends, who is more like a sister to me — I grew up next door to her and since she didn’t have any sisters of her own, she adopted me and my younger sister — turned 30 this year. All three of us having March birthdays, the whole month is a celebration.
I didn’t miss a beat calling Michelle OLD in every single social media post about her birthday. I wrote it in her card, on Facebook, on Instagram and now I’m writing it in the newspaper. She knows I’m joking, but totally serious at the same time, because no matter how old I get, she will always be older.
In celebration of her big 3-0, she had the grand idea to go back in time, way back in time; Medieval Times. She hadn’t been to the dinner show since she was about 8-years-old and I was the same. So we piled a group of 6 into her mini-van and set out to Orlando, jamming out to '90s music on the way to put us in a good nostalgic mood.
The anticipation grew as we saw the castle from the road. I started to get giddy at the thought of hanging out with some knights. Maybe my 8-year-old self would get her wish and a knight would fall madly in love with me.
Upon getting our table number, we were all given a crown in honor of our knight. All the girls in our party agreed that any place that gives us a crown when we walk in the door is bound to be a great time.
As the show started, so did our feast, which we ate with our hands because after all, we were in the medieval times. We waved our green flags and cheered proudly whenever the green knight was competing.
At intermissions throughout the tournament, knights trotted around on their horses searching the audience for fair ladies to give flowers to. I smiled my flirtiest smile and waved my flag honorably every time he was near in hopes of stealing a little bit of my knight’s heart. Then, a red carnation came flying up into the stands. I stood up, and reached out — blocking my friend Holly, who was sitting next to me — and caught the flower. The little kid in me was giddy all over again.
During the joust, I explained to my party how the scoring system works, relying on my vast knowledge from repeatedly watching a “Knight’s Tale,” (which I own on VHS). A broken lance is good, but de-horsing your opponent is better. Unfortunately for the land of the green, our knight was a novice. After getting knocked off his horse he displayed a very sad performance in the sword fight, ending in his death.
But, we still had our crowns!
We rocked our crowns the entire drive home along with more awesome '90s hits, singing along with all the songs and dancing in our seats.
I wanted to make sure that I could wear my crown for any special occasion, so the next day I set out for some crafting, transforming the green crown of our loosing knight into a colorful, glitter filled Shanna crown. This week I am calling it my birthday crown.
I’m fairly certain that given a cape to go with my crown, I could save the world.
