Filling in the blanks as we go… ~Taylor Swift, Cornelia Street
18 years ago, I celebrated my birthday. Well, your birthday, but my Birth Day; I honestly did the heavy lifting that day. You’ve never made anything easy. Ten days past your due date, you finally deigned to make an appearance, throwing your arms overhead in victory at the final push. This meant I basically birthed you sideways, pain like I’ve never known, immediately forgotten as I met you for the first time. Paul McCartney sang Blackbird in the background and you turned your tiny head toward the sound. We should have known then.
Isabelle for my side of the family, Elaine for your father’s. We’d thought to call you Bella, but the moniker didn’t fit the little red-faced monkey that screamed for the first 7 hours straight of her life on earth. Izzie means God laughed, which obviously fits you like a well-worn shoe.
And here you are, old enough to buy a lottery ticket, mere months away from moving to Nashville and forging your musical dreams. It’s exactly as they said: the days are long but the years are short. If I could turn back the clock, I would hold you longer, sing one more song, linger in the snuggle, let you stay in the bath until your tiny fingers pruned.
I love your beautiful mind, the way you can easily do complicated math in your head. I love watching you bake (converting ounces to mL) or sew (deciding how much fabric you’ll need for a given project) without having to google or use a calculator. I’m amazed at how you watch Mr. Steve strum something and then just echo him, all you need to learn the intro to California Dreamin’ or the solo in Take It Easy. How do you do that?
You are equal parts weird and wonderful. You hate noise but love music, eschew meat but love BLTs. You are passionate about supporting local farmers, but won’t say no to some late-night Taco Bell. You’re loyal to a fault, your group of friends very small – and very lucky. You aren’t interested in exercise, but you’ll spend hours still on the rusty swing set you outgrew years ago. And you’re always down for some restorative yoga. You love your job at Beech Springs and your audio engineering gig at Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour, but your favorite weekend involves a long nap, a good book, and your dog.
You’re beyond frustrating sometimes. We’re both fire signs and often butt heads. I look in your Aries eyes and see my Leonine own staring back. You’re generally easy going, but can be insanely stubborn when you really care about something. Some things have to be hospital clean and others can be pigsty messy, the rhyme or reason known only to you. Your hands are cracked and bleeding from the OCD washing, yet your room looks like a good spring storm flew in, clothes piled everywhere and anywhere.
The three years it took us to get the right diagnosis and treatment for your incredibly special brain – and in a global pandemic, no less – made you stronger and more resilient than any 18-year old should be. But healed people heal people and you have developed unbelievable empathy and compassion for the true and hard things in life.
So, happy birthday. You have reached this milestone, but your real life has only just begun. I eagerly wait to see what your life has in store for you. Don’t be in a hurry to grow up. Your main job for the next few years is discovering who you are and how you’ll bring your light to the world.
Stay kind. Stay you. Buy the lottery ticket and follow its advice. You can’t win if you don’t play.
