I am a bit scared right now.

I am also a bit drunk right now. Both things are due to the fact I had an accident today on my bike. (Don’t worry, no wounds that look like they’re gonna last.)

It’s just that the accident made me realise how fragile my happiness is. How fragile my body is. How small the distance is between being a happy, successful professional with a gorgeous boyfriend and a body in the morgue.

When I was 13 I thought grown ups were, basically, people who could buy all the sweets they wanted. My mom would only give me a small bit of chocolate and I would think “just you wait — I’ll buy a WHOLE ONE when I am older, and I will EAT it and you won’t be able to STOP me”. Little did I know that once I grew up I was going to discover I actually don’t like sweets much*.

When I was 19, I thought I was going to meet my perfect man — most probably along the lines of me slipping in a supermarket, him extending a hand, us looking deep into each others’ eyes and falling in love — and spend the rest of life with him in our white house with two white Labradors. (I don’t know why, especially since I don’t really like dogs much, but that’s what the vision was.) It didn’t quite happen.

It was much later that I have discovered being a grown-up actually means being responsible. Even if you don’t agree something is your fault. Even if you feel treated unfair. Even if you want to scream “THIS IS NOT WHAT I ORDERED”. Even if you have no faintest clue what to do. Being a grown-up means you have to make your own choices. And not just easy ones, like “red or white” or what you’ll have for dinner. Difficult ones, too. Like: single or coupled? Or: insured or uninsured? Or…

When I was 31 I met Boo. I was quite happy being single, and it made me think that perhaps I am not so happy being in a relationship. It made me question every single day, every single meeting between the two of us: does this make me happier or less happy than being single?

And now that I have been 32 for whole 6 days I have discovered that having someone you can call at 9am after having had an accident — someone who will come over, take you home, make you tea and sandwiches, ask you 10 times if you need any groceries done, shower you with hugs and kisses, make quite a few sexual innuendos (which is quite a nice thing when you consider yourself as sexual as a pair of slippers), force you to stop worrying about What Might Happen and insist quite a few times you should go home with him and spend the rest of the day in his bed (even though you know for a fact he is shit busy in the next few days and the very last thing he needs is someone distracting him from what he has to do)… well… having a person like that is actually kind of worth an awful lot. Even if they weren’t all that nice towards you last night, even if they suggested you used to dress badly until they made you dress better (true fact), even if they woke you up at 2am because they couldn’t sleep and got bored. Even then. Even then being able to call them at ANY time and knowing they will come over as soon as possible… is worth LOADS.

Today, I might have just reconsidered my idea of what I want from life.

* I would be grateful if a native English speaker told me if this sentence is grammatically correct. Serious.