It’s my fourth favorite person in the worlds extra special born day tomorrow. Who’s keeping count right?! But I’ve learned over the years I need to be my number one, closely followed by my children, and have now been blessed enough that now we are 5. Still soon to be 6…. that dream floats evermore back into the picture daily. Thank god for our natural innate resilience.
Just 5 humans trying to navigate a painful and divisive world with the biggest of hearts and fullest of enthusiasms.
So I just want to take some time to honor this new addition to our family. She’s new old. We have a new love everyday, that feels like it could/should have been there my whole life. The depth goes that far.
My dearest Courtney you walked softly into our lives, as if on a bed of Snow White powder, silently, and yet the foundation we are laying together is molten lava stream of concrete that has hardened into the kind of solid ground healthy families thrive on. We created this out of a place of deep love for love itself, and for the creation of the family we always dreamed of.
I’m so proud of us. You’re a mighty, quiet, thoughtful, kind, soul, who lights up a room with her smile. People just love to be around you, and I consider it a constant gift that I get to be the benefactor of a large amount of these moments.
Whether you are generously rubbing my back at the end of the day because you know how heavy my walk in the world has been, or cooking a meal that risks you great criticism for my ever changing teenage children’s tastes….. you do it with loving kindness.
You see yourself so often as less than what you are, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to show you your powers. Great healing powers, they are immense.
No matter what else you do with your life from here on out, please know you have saved us. This is not dramatic, rather it is true. You’re gentle with our hearts, when much of life for the kids and I has felt intense.
Your gentle love is an intense space of healing, and I’ll love you like the grateful stray dog I have always felt like, that’s found her forever home.
And finally now this is all ok. It was never supposed to be different. I was never supposed to be more than what I was when I was, and neither are you. We just are.
And this life with you in it is bliss to me.
So I hope your 35th year lends to you feeling as special as you make us feel everyday.
It is fitting we get to experience Hamilton in Broadway together to celebrate. I remember watching you see Wicked and it was one of the most ground moving moments of my life. I knew you felt with your whole self, and I knew that’s what I wanted and deserved.
Thank you in a million little ways….