"Why adults need parties more than kids."

Last Saturday night I was at a friend’s 40^th birthday party. Nothing unusual about that you say? Well I tell you there is because that was my first party invite for many, many long months.

I spent the day looking forward to it, an hour getting myself party-ready, and the evening laughing, chatting and dancing quite badly to an array of tunes from Meatloaf to Kanye.

At one point as I was busting out my best nutbush, I looked around at a sea of sweaty, smiling and slightly disheveled partygoers and felt a proper sense of love and camaraderie.

Some of those people doing the double step-jump, whilst dressed in wigs and plenty of polyester (yes it was a dress-up) had been through treatment for cancer, some had ongoing health conditions that made life difficult, some had kids being bullied, some had experienced mental health issues.

So many examples of plain-awful, shitty sadness in the lives of so many wonderful people because lets face it, life around the age of 40 can be tough. And the worse part is it only gets tougher.

Which is why I am here to proclaim it loud and clear – adults over thirty-five years-old NEED parties. It is practically medicinal to have a good time in order to distract us from thinking about the ever-decreasing road towards the grave.

When the hen party and wedding invitations start to dry up because you are getting on a bit and all your invites have Angry Birds or Disney Princess printed on them, then damn it we need our own parties more than ever.

Adults need to dance, and fling our arms around and laugh and let it out because it’s fun. We need parties because the older we get, the more serious life becomes and consequentially, the less we feel able to let our hair down and simply get silly.

Kids on the other hand, party all the time and if you have kids you most likely spend the best part of your weekend making small talk in someone’s backyard while clutching two half-drunk juice boxes all while completely sober and starving hungry for food that is not covered in hundreds and thousands.

If you have older kids you might be able to do the drop-and-roll, but you’ll be lucky to have time for a flat white in-between a socially active kid’s party schedule that includes bowling alleys, beauticians, petting zoos and trampoline parks.

Let’s be honest – while we all love our kids and our friends and even most of our friend’s kids, most of us are just looking forward the moment someone brings out the cake, we all sing ‘happy birthday’ and then we can go home and crack out the chardonnay.

While many parents are quite happy to send the invites out for kids parties and spend thousands of dollars and hours of time decorating a highly instagrammable pastel-themed display table, the invites for adults parties are much fewer and far between.

Unless you move in circles at the Kardashian level where your fake lashes, tan and nails must be ready at all times in case an invite to Lara Worthington’s new eye serum drops, parties in my experience are too rare.

Whole months can roll by without one, so much so that I am already mentally organising my 40^th birthday which is over THREE YEARS away. Last year I simply gave up waiting for someone else to hit a milestone and hosted a party for my 36^th birthday – we had karaoke, a barbeque and some champagne at our place and had a great old time of it.

I know that many adults feel slightly embarrassed about holding a party – unless it is for a special occasion – because that would be seen as too indulgent or self interested. People worry that their guests will have to ‘make an effort’ and it takes up precious ‘family time’ at the weekend. Instead us adults spend most weekends ‘catching up on jobs around the house’ or going to Bunnings and of course standing around at kids’ parties.

Convinced you should have a party immediately? Get yourself ready with these easy party nails. Post continues after video… 

Growing older is hard and sometimes boring and while I do not want to be a kid, a teenager or even an insecure twenty-something, I believe we need to mix up those home improvement weekends and conversations about school lunches, the sore back, the yoga retreat and the Thermomix (kill me now) and take a tip from those non-stop partying Kardashian/Jenners.

I’m calling on all adults to be more shameless about hosting a party or even just going out for drinks/girls nights/date nights. You are turning 48 and a half? I’ll celebrate that! Your cat is home from the vets? I’m in! You just got the divorce papers through? Book the DJ!

Life is short and even if you have a sore back or shelves that need putting up, I for one will appreciate the invitation to your party and I’m pretty sure you need that chardonnay and a chance to do the nutbush more than you know.

Now send out those invites.