A milestone card is the one she reads twice. Ordinary birthdays get a message and a reply within the hour; the round ones get opened slowly, propped on the mantelpiece and picked up again a fortnight later. That is a great deal to ask of a line about hoping she has a lovely day. It is also why the number itself does the organising here: a 30th and a 60th are not the same event with a different figure on the front of the card. At thirty she is being told, mostly by strangers on the internet, that several things ought to have been sorted out by now. At forty the diary is fuller than the day. At fifty something quietly loosens and she stops explaining herself. At sixty the only real question is whether anybody is going to treat her as though she has finished. So the wishes below are sorted by the decade, and then by where the words have to survive: on a card, in a message signed by everyone, or said out loud with a glass in your hand.
30th birthday wishes for a friend, in your own words
Thirty. The age everybody warns you about and nobody can quite explain. You have made a far better job of getting here than most of us, and I include myself in that.
Happy 30th. Ignore the lists of things you were supposed to have finished by now. Whoever wrote them has never met you.
Many happy returns on your 30th. Here is to a decade in which you spend considerably less time apologising for the way you are doing things.
You are thirty today and, as far as I can tell, in precisely the right decade to be in: nothing decided, everything still open, no need to hurry any of it.
Thirty looked enormous when we were teenagers and talking absolute rubbish about it. It turns out to be a Tuesday with a cake on it, and I am very glad to be at yours.
Wishing you a brilliant 30th. May this be the decade you stop asking whether you are behind. You are not, and nor is anybody else who claims otherwise.
To thirty: old enough to be trusted with serious things, young enough to change your mind about every one of them. Have a wonderful birthday.
Happy birthday to a thirty-year-old. Everything you worried about at twenty-five has quietly sorted itself out without your help. I expect the same trick again.
40th birthday wishes for a friend
Forty, and I have never known you busier or better company. Here is to a year with rather more room in it than the last one had.
Happy 40th. This is the birthday where people begin telling you it is only a number, usually people who are not the one turning forty.
Many happy returns on your 40th. At this point you know exactly what you like, which is more than most of us had managed by thirty.
Forty today. You have stopped doing the things you never enjoyed in the first place, and I am fairly sure that is the entire point of this decade.
Wishing you a very happy 40th. May the diary be emptier than usual, the phone quieter than usual, and the evening entirely your own.
At forty you can tell within about a minute whether something is worth your time. It is a useful gift and it only arrives now. Have a lovely birthday.
To your 40th: the same person, better judgement, far less patience with nonsense. All three suit you enormously.
Happy birthday. Forty looks like knowing what you are doing, and you have been doing it for years. Everyone else has only just caught on.
50th birthday wishes for a friend
Fifty. You have stopped explaining yourself to people who were never going to understand, and it is the best thing that has happened to you in years.
Happy 50th. Here is to a decade of saying no rather more often and thoroughly enjoying the things you say yes to.
Many happy returns on your 50th. Half a century, and you still have a considerably better social life than I do.
Fifty today, and I have known you for roughly half of it. It is easily the best-accounted-for half of my own life.
Wishing you a very happy 50th. May the next ten years hold more of what you actually like and rather less of what you agreed to out of politeness.
At fifty you can spot bad advice in the first sentence. It took you a while and it was worth the wait. Have a lovely birthday.
To fifty: fewer obligations, better company, and no interest whatsoever in impressing anybody. That is a very good place to be standing.
Happy birthday. Fifty suits you, largely because you have never once acted your age and show no sign of starting now.
60th birthday wishes for a friend
Sixty, and not the faintest sign of anybody slowing down. Whatever you are planning next, count me in.
Happy 60th. You have earned the right to do very little indeed, and I notice you have absolutely no intention of taking it.
Many happy returns on your 60th. Here is to a decade of all the things you kept putting off because there was always something else on.
Sixty today. The best part is that you have stopped waiting for permission, which turns out to have been the only thing holding anybody up.
Wishing you a very happy 60th: good health, good company, and a calendar you are finally in charge of.
At sixty you know precisely who is worth the trouble. I am relieved to still be on the list. Have a wonderful birthday.
To your 60th: the same nerve, the same laugh, considerably more freedom. It is a fine combination and I hope you use all of it.
Happy birthday. Sixty is the age at which people expect a quiet life, and you have never once given them one.
Short enough for the card
Thirty looks well on you. Many happy returns.
Happy 40th. The same you, with better judgement.
To fifty, and to whoever you turn into over the next ten years.
Sixty, and still the most trouble in any room. Have a lovely day.
Many happy returns on your 30th. Nothing is decided yet, and that is the good part.
Forty today. Take the whole of it. You have earned it twice over.
Happy 50th. Fewer obligations and better company from here onwards.
To your 60th, with a great deal of love and no advice whatsoever.
Thirty. Onwards, and not one word about five-year plans.
Happy 40th. Here is to an evening with nothing in the diary after it.
Fifty years, and you have wasted almost none of them.
Many happy returns on your 60th. The next decade is entirely yours to spend.
From a group of friends signing one card
From all of us: happy 30th. We have compared notes and not one of us can remember you ever being boring, which is quite an achievement over this many years.
Forty, from the whole lot of us. We would list the reasons we are fond of you, but the card is not big enough and somebody has already used both sides of it.
Happy 50th from everyone here. Half a century, several of us present for most of it, and not one of us with a story we could safely tell in front of your family.
To your 60th, from all of us. Between us we have got you through a great deal, and you have got us through rather more. Have a wonderful day.
We clubbed together on the card and could not agree on a single line, so here is the only sentence all of us signed off: thirty suits you, and none of us is going anywhere.
Happy 40th from the group. We have known you across three jobs, two house moves and one career decision we all agreed never to mention again. Consider it mentioned.
From everyone, on your 60th: carry on making plans, carry on telling us about them far too late, and carry on expecting us to turn up. We always do.
A few words to say at the party
I will keep this short, because she would never forgive a speech. Thirty years, and every one of them better for the people standing in this room. To her.
Two sentences and then we can all get back to it. She is forty today, she has looked after most of us at some point, and not one of us has ever thanked her properly. To her health.
I was told there would be no speeches, so this is not one. Fifty years, and she has not wasted a single one of them being somebody else. Raise your glass.
Right, sixty. She will be mortified that I have stood up at all, so I shall sit down quickly. Thank you for having us, and here is to the next ten years. To her.
A few words only. At thirty she already knows exactly who she is, which took the rest of us considerably longer. To her, and to the decade ahead.
Forty today. I have known her long enough to know she would rather I stopped talking, so: thank you for all of it, and here is to plenty more. Cheers.
If you will indulge me for twenty seconds: fifty, a room full of people who all made an effort to be here, and nobody who needed persuading. That tells you everything.
Questions and answers
Does the same message work for a 30th and a 60th if you swap the number over?
It reads as a swap, and that is the one thing a milestone card cannot survive. Each decade has a different argument running around it, and your message answers that argument whether you mean it to or not. At thirty she is being measured against other people and told she is behind. At forty the trouble is that nothing in the week belongs to her. At fifty it is the list of things put off until later. At sixty it is other people deciding on her behalf that the interesting part is over. Reassurance about being on schedule is right in the first case and mildly offensive in the last. Pick the argument that is actually running and write against that one; the rest can be as ordinary as you like.
Thirty seems to land harder than the decades after it. What actually helps in a message?
It lands hard because it is the first birthday with a scoreboard attached. Nobody audits a twenty-seventh; at thirty everybody quietly compares jobs, homes and whether anyone has settled down. The message that helps does not argue with the scoreboard, because arguing keeps it in the room. It ignores it entirely. Write about what she is like — the thing she is good at, the way she handles people, something she did this year that you admired — and say nothing whatsoever about being on track. Avoid the two standard moves as well. Telling her she does not look it is still a remark about the number, and promising the best is yet to come implies the present is a waiting room.
What can a friend put in a milestone message that her family cannot?
Two things, and they are why a friend’s card is the one that gets kept. The first is that you chose her. Family is compulsory and everyone in the room knows it, whereas a friendship is a long run of decisions to keep turning up; saying plainly that you would choose her again carries a weight no relative can manage. The second is the present tense. Relatives write about the girl they remember, because that is the material they own, and by the end of the day she has been described as a child several times over. You watched her run this decade as an adult, so say what she has been like in it. Leave the childhood photographs to the people who own them.
There is no party — she is away for the weekend instead. When does the card get given?
Before she travels, while she still has an unhurried evening to read it in. The difficulty with a weekend away is not the timing of the card but the state she is in when it reaches her: anything that lands mid-journey is read one-handed, and anything waiting for her return is read while she is unpacking and thinking about work. Write for the version of her who has half an hour and nothing else on. If you cannot see her first, say in the card that it is deliberately early, which removes the only awkwardness. Then on the day send a line she is not obliged to answer: a milestone weekend is more scheduled than it looks, and a long message mid-weekend becomes an item on her list.
We are the same age and mine is coming up next. Does that change what I can write?
It hands you the one angle nobody else at the party has, and most people waste it. Being in the same year means you can write from inside the number rather than commenting on it from outside: what the pair of you assumed this age would look like, which bits have turned out to be nonsense, what you are both still working out. That is warmer than any compliment and it costs nothing. Two things to steer clear of. Do not turn it into a joint birthday message, because the day is hers and the card should not be quietly requesting the same treatment back. And do not make your own dread the joke, because it reads as fishing for reassurance over somebody else’s cake.