Tag: celebrating

You’re Invited to a Birthday Party.

There is this thing about birthdays – something ALWAYS happens.

The boy you love doesn’t love you back. The friend you really want to be at your gathering is not there. Some friendship is not where it needs to be. Something about your body doesn’t look quite right. The outfit you picked a week ago doesn’t look as good as it did in the fitting room. When does that ever happy, anyway?

I feel like I have ruined some of the most important moments in my life for myself. The overtime that I put the thoughts in my head through and the expectations that I set for people, or relationships, or moments.

I am finally learning to live in the moment. I understand that every birthday is a year closer to death.

However, how much more afraid would you be to die if you never really lived at all? If you never celebrated? If you never made ridiculous wishes as you blew out your candles? If you never got your face smashed into your cake by your older brother? If your dog never came and swiped a piece of food off of the table during your party while no one was looking If you didn’t take the 5,621 and a half pictures that your parent wanted you to? If you didn’t dance horribly to your favorite song with a group of your closest friends? If there wasn’t just a little sadness mixed in with pure joy? If there wasn’t some god awful presents that you had to put your fake smile on during the opening of them?

You wouldn’t be afraid of dying, you’d just be dead.

I think my biggest fear comes from the greatest moments not being able to last forever. One day, they will fade. I will fade. And someone somewhere will be wishing that their best friend Piper came to their birthday party and the whole day will be ruined. Even though their mom made the birthday cake from scratch. Even though there is a used truck with a big red bow parked in front of their house.

Turn off your thoughts every once in a while. And just celebrate. Act like those 6 or 7 hours are your last. And when you blow those candles out, wish for forever.

And let’s stop ruining things for ourselves before they’ve even happened. Just because something isn’t how we imagined it – doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful in it’s own right.

Let’s celebrate everything – because we never know when the last time is the last time.

Please, PLEASE, go out and celebrate.

–S.

When my brother turned 9.

2013.

I think even when you turn 36, or 82, or 117, I would still call you baby.

You were born the day before I started eighth grade.

I was worried about which of my best-friends were going to what high school, my whole life ruined and in shambles. How was I ever going to pick where to go?

Mom already told me that she wouldn’t fill out the transfer papers. Do you think I could have forged them?

And then there was you. Little, but big at the same time.

With a head full of brown hair. You peed on the nurse. That’s when I knew you were going to be trouble. You were so…so baby. And I was scared to hold you. What if I hurt you? Or if I didn’t hold you correctly? Or you started crying?

In time, you became my little, but big at the same time best friend.

I think the most important thing that I have learned from your nine years on this earth is just to breath. Life isn’t about marking up a calendar to next year and back of things that need to be done. Life isn’t about constantly making lists. Life is just about living.

Sometimes you take fifteen minutes to say something that could have been said in one sentence, and you remind me of our mother.

Sometimes you get frustrated really easily and shut down, and you remind me of our father.

Sometimes you nod your head to a song you don’t know the lyrics to and you close your eyes, and you remind me of myself.

I know that there will be a day when mom and dad won’t be on earth with us and it’ll just be the two of us. Life won’t always be fort building, ramen making at midnight with melted slices of cheese, waking up to Nerf guns, cannon balls in the pool, ice cold cokes on a summer day, Halo 4 campaigns before going to sleep, Teen Titans at 3 am, or scavenging the refrigerator for two items that are possibly edible together.

People move away. They have their own families. They stop talking. They start again. They love. They get hurt. They love again. They never stop loving. These are also parts of living.

These are things we don’t write on our list or our five-year plan.

I remember when we had to put Whoopie to sleep, I think that was your first real loss.

You lost your best friend. The dog that you’d known since birth. You were eight. For a long time we were worried because you were really sad, and you stopped telling jokes and laughing as often as you used to. Your spirit wasn’t as bright as it had always been.

And then we brought Ringo home a couple months ago, and you didn’t want to tell mom and dad, but you whispered in my ear that it made you sad although you really liked Ringo – he just wasn’t Whoopie.

My heart broke baby.

I want you to know that if I could somehow ensure that a part of you stays innocent forever, I would. That a part of you still cries when Sarah McLaughlin comes on and they show the commercial with the animals. If I could somehow make sure that your heart is always big and always full of love and that you never get tarnished, I would do that for you. Even if it meant sacrificing any amount of happiness of my own. I want you to never be afraid to be yourself. Even if kids laugh. I want you to wear clothes that don’t match, if you want to. I want you to do the robot to a song that the robot ‘shouldn’t’ be done to. I want you to mouth lyrics you don’t even know. I want you to still hug mom and dad and tell them that they are your best friends. I want you to keep laughing. Keep dancing. Keep dreaming. Keep loving. Keep smiling. Keep hoping. Keep wishing. Keep being goofy. Keep telling stories. Keep telling corny jokes. Keep living. It has been an honor to help raise you, to love you, and to take care of you.

I hope you always remember a time when we laughed and played together, and the world seemed a little simpler.

–S.