Happy 67th Birthday

Dear Mom,

Every year on your birthday I sit and think of all the versions of yourself you could’ve been. The lives you could’ve lived. The memories you could’ve had.

Do you remember running a half marathon at 55 to convince people you, “weren’t getting old?”

Sometimes I feel old. Aged really, from the years of missing and needing you. You’d laugh at me for complaining about gray hairs and say I have a lifetime ahead to feel old. Be young and enjoy it.

As years pass people think we look more and more alike. They take brief seconds to collect themselves when realizing it’s not you in front of them it’s me. As a child I resented this. As an adult I embrace it.

I see you in every glass of red wine, every baby laughing, every cashmere sweater, every hardcover book with a page folded at the corner.

I feel you in every heartache and heartwarming every euphoric high and every melancholic low. Each year that passes I understand you more as a woman and not just a parent.

Happy 67th birthday Mom.

You are loved, you are remembered, you are infinite