Wanted: Party Planner (um...maybe)

In just over two months I will be celebrating my 40^th birthday.  We humans like to mark time and perhaps because we have ten digits to count with, we like to do it in decades.   Since on average we can expect to be on this earth for about eight of full counts of these digits, forty marks the midpoint for most of us.   It is one of those ages where people look at their lives and ask if themselves, “Am I in the place I want to be?”

I have to confess to the fact that I have never really had any sort of plan.  Way back when I was preparing to graduate from high school and everyone else around me seemed to have at least a bit of a clue as to what they wanted to do, I sat down to give my future some thought and…I came up completely blank.  I truly had no idea what I might want to do or who I wanted to be.   My senior yearbook quite accurately lists my future ambition as “none.”  Since most of the adults in my life weren’t freaking out about this, I decided that panicking wasn’t necessary and stepped blindly off into the world of adulthood. 

In the intervening 32 years of experiencing the world I certainly learned a few lessons, had my share of wins and losses, found some direction and now at nearly 40 I can say I’m pretty much okay with where I am.  I am still in the process of figuring out who I am and I’m thinking it’s going to take at least another four decades to even come close to saying I’ve found myself.

Now, despite the preceding three paragraphs, this post isn’t about whether or not I am happy with my life on the edge of 40.  What this post is actually about is how I should mark my arrival at this particular milestone.  I did have a plan, a BIG plan; one that involved hot tubs in the middle of February, a photo booth and a bonfire.   However, the funds for said ambitious plan went towards emergency surgery for one of my spinster mascots.  While there is no way that I would change that and I am happy that I have many more years of kitty cuddles ahead of me, it did pretty much pull the financial legs from beneath my birthday extravaganza. 

In addition to this I also find myself busier than I have ever been at any previous point in my life.  Even if I had the funds to celebrate in the manner that I’d planned, I’m not sure I’d have the time to actually coordinate the event.  I’d be quite happy with a gathering of friends with a potluck dinner and a large assortment of cupcakes but, I’d be lucky if I managed a facebook invite a week before the party was due to be held. 

I suppose if I had a significant other it would, by default, be their job to handle the planning but since I quite happily don’t (and certainly any past beau’s I’ve had would not have been up to the task…sorry guys, but I generally was the more organized one), what I am wondering is if it is okay to ask someone, like a friend, to help with planning my 40^th birthday party?

I admit to feeling a bit strange asking for assistance with this.  I would be asking someone to help out with an event that is, after all, all about me.  Then again if I were planning any other milestone event, a wedding, graduation, birth of a child, etc., I’d probably not feel at all weird about asking for help and so maybe my hesitance in asking for assistance with this is because it is all about me and I’m worried about appearing self-centered or selfish.  Yep apparently even proud spinsters have hang-ups.

So I’m asking for your thoughts on this readers and friends.  Is it okay to ask for help in planning this event that will mark my four decades of existence on this earth?  What are your thoughts?  

Thank you…