Some Advice for Prince Harry on His 30th Birthday

Dear Prince Harry on the Occasion of Your Thirtieth Birthday,

Hey Harry. Can I call you Harry? Great.

My friends call me Denver. You can call me Mr. Nicks. As your elder by roughly four months I have some wisdom to impart on this auspicious day.

30 is a big one. The major milestones of youth are behind you. Through your twenties you eked what life-force you could from the mere fact that at least you weren’t yet 30. Today you confront the cold hard truth that every birthday from here on people will be less and less interested in how old you are, save for the bored stone carver who one day does the math in his head while chiseling the year into your gravestone. Happy Birthday.

A few things to look out for….

There will come a day sometime soon when you look in the mirror and see wrinkles where once your face was as porcelain. You’re going to feel an unfamiliar and unsettling urge to buy an assortment of skin products, then helplessness and confusion when you realize you have no idea where to start. You’ll be desperate and start on a mad online shopping spree anyway.

Indulge it. Who’s to say if that stuff works and in any event you’ll make a bunch of nonsensical purchases, but when you wake up in the middle of the night and start tugging on the loose skin of your throat wondering where all the years went even a little placebo cream can be a big comfort. I mean, so I’m told.

As redheads, you and I don’t have to worry about our hair going grey (it’ll most likely turn blonde and then a shining Gandalfian white, so, high five) but we do have to worry about our fair skin. Sun screen can be a pain but it’s time to start wearing it.

If you haven’t yet, try to stop smoking. It won’t take, but trying and failing to quit at 30, the absolute zero hour at which you promised yourself up and down you would give it up, is a fun exercise in confronting your own moral limitations and the incontrovertible truth that the only thing that really changes is we get a little bit fatter every year. It’s like that moment when you haven’t had a good bath in days and you could sort of go either way and you just embrace the filth: gross and not good for you or those around you but weirdly comforting.

I read this sentence written about you in the UK’s Mirror newspaper. “But a friend of the Prince said: ‘I saw him cry one night at a club. He was surrounded by beautiful girls – and the only one he wanted was Chelsy.’” I’m going to assume that’s rubbish, but if there is any truth at all to it then it’s time to move on. Like dressing for shock value and hangovers that last just one day, crying about unrequited love is for twenty somethings.

Addendum: you are allowed to cry about sports and can use this time to clandestinely cry about unrequited love in an absolute pinch, but if you get busted, you’re on your own. Harry who? Never heard of him.

31 Photos of Prince Harry