One of my favorite parts of my birthday is reading through all the different messages people write to me on facebook. Yes, I know there are those who say that’s a pathetic relationship to have nothing more than one bland happy birthday on your facebook wall once a year. But I don’t care, because if all someone does is simply write the most basic “happy birthday” and nothing else, it still brings me back to that moment, that short space in life when that person and I shared something, a breath of life, that is our life together.
Road trips with college teammates. Thousands of hours of high school orchestra rehearsals with Mr K. Somehow surviving and get that C in freshman year Spanish class. A love for Honduras. A weekend retreat in silence with catholic monks. 27 hours on a bus to Salta and back. An entire masters program. The secret embarrassment of being a Girl Scout in high school. Hitchhiking to the beach in the DR. an oxygen tank. Love/hate relationship with a cat named Smokey. long conversations about life over tea. A tiny apartment in the East Village. A huge apartment in Santo Domingo with a view of the sea. Bad Italian. the secrete to making Colombian arepas. nursery school love.
These are the moments that have made up my life. These are the people that have made up the moments that are my life. So I am happy for a chance to remember, and to celebrate each person and the moment that we shared.
Because what else is life than a fluid, constant flowing of moments? And when we forget those moments, has a part of us simply ceased to exist?
Wandering Joy 