Tim Dowling: life is sweet

'It seems odd to allude to my good fortune. I can only promise that, like turning 50, it probably won't happen twice'
Benoit Jacques illustration 15/06/13

So, the unprecedented run of 50th birthdays I've attended has reached, if not an end, a kind of culmination, with my own 50th birthday party. I would not like to pretend it constituted a highlight of the season, because some people have fireworks, but it had the right note of abandon, in that people who hadn't smoked in years were out in the garden, passing lighters and purporting to be shocked by the price of a packet of 10.

As with most uncharted emotional territory, the problem with turning 50 is that you don't really know how you're going to feel until you get there. I start the day in a dangerously giddy mood, then fall into a deep gloom, because the kitchen table, which my wife wants moved into the garden, won't sit flush with the back wall of the house, because the hosepipe fitting is in the way.

"This isn't working," I say, exhaling furiously.

"It's fine," my wife says. "Just leave it at a slight angle."

"It looks stupid," I say. "Why is that thing even there?"

My wife's eyebrows arch in a manner that is meant to say, "We both know this isn't entirely about the hosepipe fitting being in the way, don't we?"

But I have a great need to pretend, for the moment, that all my immediate problems could be fixed if I only had a big enough sledgehammer.

In the end I decide a half-hour spent curled in a ball on the bedroom floor, followed by a slice of toast, will be enough to restore my equilibrium. Back downstairs, I find that my wife has hidden the toaster. Why would she do that, on this day of all days? Does she not want people to know we make our own?

Obviously, I'm also worried about having a full house, and what people might whisper to one  another.

"In his column he makes it sound as if his life is falling apart," they will say, "and yet this kitchen has clearly been repainted in the last three years."

Over the years, my consistent failure to accentuate the positive may make it hard for some people to believe that I have handsome, charming, helpful sons, four rows of impressive lettuces, a largely pest-free living environment, 84 matching wine glasses (from Ikea – cheaper than hiring) and a wife who loves me enough to organise a big party in the face of my stubborn refusal to acknowledge the passing of my half-century in any way. Frankly, I'm a little taken aback myself.

During the amusing and yet also highly flattering speeches, I am seized by a sudden fear that the whole event has been staged as some kind of elaborate psychiatric intervention, but the obvious moment at which a doctor would appear and stick a syringe in my arm passes without incident. It only remains for me to thank everyone and to beg them to say nothing of what they have seen this night.

It seems odd – even a little unprofessional – to allude to my good fortune on this page. I can only promise that, like turning 50, it probably won't happen twice. I am a profoundly lucky man. Let us never speak of it again.

The next morning, only a little hungover, I get up just after the children leave for school. The weather has turned wet overnight, and the kitchen floor is cold and sticky under my bare feet. Outside in the garden, every flat surface is covered in cheap Ikea wine glasses, each of them exactly half full of rain.

If you want a better metaphor for your future than that, I think to myself, you're going to have to leave the house more.