ON THE MAMA'S BIRTHDAY

{banksy balloon girl}

I look back on birthdays passed. As a child you sit and wait for the special gift you had been hinting at. For me it usually came. There would be the motions of a birthday: a cake, maybe a photo or two, a present...the present. But there would be no overzealous celebration. The evening usually would start and end in dysfunction and I would head to my room with a sugar rush and thoughts about what could have been.

I wanted balloons, craziness, friends to share. And that I did get...once. It was the year E.T. came out on VHS. I know because that was my gift. Friends from school came over. Our faces were covered in neon orange from Cheetos. We were bouncing off the walls and giant balloons. It was great.

But alas, this was my family and it never happened again. I desperately wanted it but the years went on and I got it into my mind that the day was just like any other and I was truly undeserving of celebration.

Then, I met the Papa. His birthdays were only slightly reminiscent of my own because of their simplicity. But they were steeped in the motions and makings of a celebration: love & laughter.

The Papa has created the most special birthdays for me as well. When in New Zealand, I was treated to an evening at a geothermal spa, ate Thai delights, and stepped onto a gondola to ride carts down a mountain in Rotorua. Could I possibly have been so deserving?

The day has arrived yet again. The day when I am expected to celebrate my birth. And while I am blessed to realize that because of my birth, my wonderful Babes eventually blessed the world, I still have a twinge of guilt for embracing the day as my own.

So today, I decided to embrace the day not as my own but as ours. And I must say honestly...it truly has trumped a view from the top of a mountain on the other side of the world. I shared the day with the three people who I love the most and who love me the same. There was celebration in simplicity. And today I marvelled in its brilliance.

xoxox

The Mama