Acting your age?

As I sit here feeling sorry for myself - fed up already of daytime TV, reading my book, coughing, aching and napping, I can't help but think of two things - my heavy weekend last week and my upcoming 30th birthday.

Last weekend I went out drinking on Friday night with work colleagues (managing to get lost on a ten minute max journey to the station to get home), then on Saturday I awoke to a bad hangover, realising I was due out again that night. Saturday night then saw me out from 6pm-2am on a 'girls night' out where I consumed a stupid amount of alcohol - although it was great fun at the time!

I suffered a bad hangover as a result - I guess a double hangover combining Friday and Saturday. As people have said previously it does seem as you get older you suffer two day hangovers. This is now certainly the case for me. I in fact still felt a tad tender and very tired on the Monday and my muscles were so achey.

Just when I could do with a relaxing night in I had to attend an industry awards ceremony on Tuesday night for work. During the afternoon I'd started to feel a bit odd too, but again put it down to a very long hangover. Getting to bed about 1am I had a sore throat and woke Wednesday feeling pretty unwell. Skip forward a day to Thursday and I had come down with a sore throat, achey body, swollen tonsils (so much that I struggled to talk/breathe properly) and a pounding head. Today I'm only a tad better and can't stop coughing.

No I'm not using this blog as some sort of sick form, I'm just highlighting what a state I seem to get in from going out. I was saying only a few weeks ago that I'd been feeling like I'd been ill non stop lately and now I'm thinking the same again, but sensing a pattern that it's after consuming lots of alcohol/nights out.

So should I grow up and act my age?

The joke is I honestly don't think I do that much socially and am not out that often. Yet if you speak to people I know they are always making comments of 'out again?' and 'I don't know how she does it'.

I've been thinking a lot lately of when I was young and on nights out seeing 'older' women - thought of as 'mutton dressed as lamb' and 'grab a granny' if I remember correctly. Now I worry that will be me.

I asked my Mum recently that how do you know when you're old do you stop and realise how to start behaving? My friends and I all say we still feel like we did at college and I love going out eating, drinking and dancing. What if I never learn to 'act my age'?

Mum said you don't ever feel your age (or at least she hasn't so far) and she's never particularly felt old, until she looks in the mirror at her appearance!

So is it just how you look that tells you you've aged? Do I need to grow up and stop getting myself in such a state, particularly as it seems my immune system can't cope anymore?

Part of me - particularly when I feel like I do now - feels that yes I do need to calm it down. However, the problem is I think it's good to act young and it is good for you overall. For example a lot of my relatives have always acted young for their age and enjoyed life and as a result have lived long and happy lives. After all I'm turning 30 not 50!