My 40th birthday party didn’t start the way I was hoping it to. It certainly didn’t end well— unless you really like hospitals. But I still had a fantastic time and ended feeling loved and cared for like never before. This is the story of how friendship is everything.
When we turned 18, my one-week-senior best friend and I organised a weekend camping party. Some 40 geeky teenagers walked for 15km from a train station to play games, drink, and be silly.
It was such a blast that we never stopped. In Polish, when a party is great and you want to keep partying, the next weekend you organise ‘Poprawiny’ — an ‘Amendment Party’.
We didn’t do one the following week, but we did next year. And every year since (except 2020, may it be forgotten). If we stopped and started aging normally, we’d both be 40 this year. Thank gods for amendment parties.
And thus it has been year after year: Thursday to Sunday, friends, forest, meadow, lake, tents, vans, bonfire, making music, and just long summer days of blissful nothing.
I soon moved to Scotland, but every summer I came back to Poland to host it. I remember the time when the first child appeared at the party — he’s 14 now and he’s been there pretty much every year of his life. In time, there were more families, dogs, new partners… The party became a time-lapse of our lives, an annual snapshot of friends who kept changing yet still wanted to stick around. New people appear, others move on, but a core group of about 20 who were there from the start remains. Some I only see this one time a year, but when we do, it’s like no time has passed.
This year was shaping up great, with a larger-than-usual crowd and people who decided to come back after years of absence. It could have been our 40th, after all. Even if we’re celebrating a few days after my best friend’s and a few before my actual birthdays. I couldn’t wait.
One of the first to arrive was a lover of mine from Berlin. We went skinny dipping in the lake, we swam around enjoying the perfect summer day and as we were drying ourselves she said: Simon, what is this?
It was a ring on my thigh. A red ring surrounding the place where a couple weeks back a tick bit me.
I had it tested a few days before, too. There was no ring then and the test came back negative. Turns out, antibody tests suck.
I have Lyme disease.
Don’t panic. My parents’ good friends are doctors. I called them and quickly got an e-prescription for a course of Doxycycline. Another friend was just arriving via a nearby town and picked it up for me from the pharmacy. I could take the first dose within a couple hours.
He enquired after a list of the things I shouldn’t do while taking it. All of which were exactly the things I wanted to do this weekend:
- Stay in the sun
- Drink alcohol
- Have dairy products
The last one was the worst. You see, there is this amazing Polish drink called Maślanka — it’s kind of like a buttermilk yoghurt but better. It’s delicious. And I got two litres of the berry flavoured one I love the most…
Fortunately, my friends loved it just as much. I gave away all the alcohol I brought with me, too, and my lovely friends went on a mission to find me the best flavoured alcohol-free beers and shandies. It turned out wonderful.
The days continued, more and more friends arrived later on Thursday, then on Friday, with some more still turning up on Saturday, pitching their tents, having wonderful chats, going for walks… The jam session on Friday night seemed to never want to end. We kept grooving for ages, getting into a crazy trance, swapping instruments, singing and vocalising, oscillating between songs and winding drones, ranging from folk through rock to ambient electro.
The kisiel fight on Saturday is always my highlight but this year it was just the best. Kisiel is this sticky jelly-custard-like desert. It’s just starch, fruit syrup and water, really. I make about 100 litres of it, spread it between three big bowls, and then we take it out to the meadow and have a huge food fight. Throwing, spreading, screaming, wrestling, licking… It’s awesome.
The bonfire that night was magical. The banter kept going and going, switching between Polish, German and English. The teenager who has been at those parties since his forever was allowed to stay up until he drops, so he did. My lover an I stayed long after, watching the falling stars and having the most glorious sex by the fire.
She had a job the next day, so I dropped her off to the train station at 5am. I slept in my van and when I opened the door around noon, the first thing I saw was a friend struggling with his own van. Flat tire.
You don’t leave a van buddy in a bind. He didn’t have a jack, so I lent him mine. We got the old tire off but when I rolled the new one in place, it turned out we need to lift the van a few more centimetres to make it fit.
I crawled under to do this.
My jack wasn’t meant for this van. You shouldn’t need to crawl under to use the jack.
It toppled.
The van slipped off the jack and fell on my shoulder, crushing me to the ground.
The next thing I remember is walking in some direction and talking to a friend who didn’t understand that I’m asking if someone could take me to the hospital.
Then the pain set in.
I was nearly fainting.
Somebody got a car started, another helped me in… I remember trying to explain that the route Google recommends is bumpy and can we take a different road.
At the end of the 15km ride to the nearest hospital, I was conscious enough to explain what happened.
They said they’ll need to do some tests. My friends went back to bring my health insurance card. Other friends found and packed some of my stuff. Some came to check in on me but they wouldn’t let them in. My mom had some premonition and called. I was being wheeled around from x-ray to CT scan to blood tests to ward. No punctured lung. No internal bleeding. No danger to life. Lie down and rest, wait for more tests.
Friends kept messaging to ask what to bring me. One took charge of the party clean-up — she’s a natural-born Domina, I can’t think of a better person for the job. Another offered to drive my van back to Berlin. Somebody brought me some food and a phone charger. Another person brought the Doxycycline. And the blessed earplugs. I was in a room with two older guys who watched the Olympics all day long. Enough sport to last me for the next four decades.
I had way too much time to think about what could have happened. If the van had moved only a few centimetres lower — if it had not rested on the new wheel but on the old deflated one, or if it had fallen to the ground… I would not be writing this now.
I have never been so close to death or so happy to be alive.
Or so grateful for friends. It’s weird but despite the initial shock, none of this spoiled my mood in the slightest. The pain was horrible, I nearly died, my plans fell through and I will be recovering for a while but… all I felt was love and care and gratitude.
I decided to write them birthday cards. Them and other people who were important in my life, just to tell them how grateful I am that they’re a part of my journey. I wrote a few to people I’ve hurt, to say I’m sorry. I wrote those I lost touch with.
I sent them all out on my actual birthday.
My actual birthday was when I got out. My best friend, the one I host the party with since we’re 18, picked me up with his wife and infant son. We wanted to spend some time together before I had to catch the train to Berlin, have a meal and a birthday cake, but the hospital lost a strip of my Doxycycline and the only doctor who could prescribe me more was nowhere to be found for over an hour.
In the end, we bought a cheap low-dairy cake in a supermarket bakery and ate it at the village train station.
It was perfect.
I’m back in Berlin now, still unable to believe how insanely lucky I am. Only internal bruises, sprains and some soft tissue tears. No fractures. No punctures. No blood clots. It will heal.
It no longer hurts when I breathe and I’m slowly even able to lift the kettle. My Doxycycline course ends in a week and I have a solid chance it kills the Lyme disease.
But none of it matters because the onslaught of kindness continues: a friend did some shopping for me and helped unpack my van yesterday; a lover stayed the night and washed my hair; another is coming over tonight and I’ve got two friends visiting on Friday. I might even make it to the wedding I’m invited to on Saturday.
‘Hell is Other People’, said Jean Paul Sartre.
Maybe.
But if you choose them right, so is heaven.
Leave a Reply