The thing about birthdays, that I've tried to tell other people for as long as I've had it figured out myself is that they aren't for the person who was born on the day. They're there for the rest of us, whoever we are in their life to try to tell them or express in some way how much we love them or what they mean to us. And once you've danced around that enough and are willing to try to put these things into words or motion, there's a whole, well but how do you tell someone that without sounding like you're buttering them up before asking for a kidney? Do you tell them that they make the dark lighter, that they make mornings less cold? Do you tell them another countless time that you love them? Do you hunt down passages and scrap book stupid things together, Because it's one of those things where I can sit and I can go through the many, many kind and wonderful people who I never thought would say a second word to me, but I had no idea that I would get to meet and fall into the orbit of someone who understands everything so easily.
You're smart and you're strong and are the bright blue part of the morning that some people will never meet with clear eyes, unfairly making it more special to the people who realise what they wake up for in the first place. Braver than most, funnier than anyone sees at first glance. Perfect in less the grand sweeping idea of what would be perfection, no faults no flaws, but perfect in knowing what and who she is and knowing that there's still a ways to go, too. I don't think people ever love the same way twice, there's an argument to be made for people who leave and come back and leave again, there could be remnants there of something that used to be, but it changes and morphs with the rest of what we become and in that, like, I will never love someone the same way with the same knowledge or insight or 2am whispers as I love you. I hate that you're an old soul, because we all know that's not the compliment that people tend to use it as, I hate that you know what it means to shrink yourself, and I am constantly in this fantastical awe seeing you go through and coming to terms with how much space people want you to occupy, how much they want you to be bright and bloom and flourish every corner you touch.
The kinds of music that I find myself swimming back to in the shallow pools of the thoughts that turn around and around like a washing machine unable to turn itself off is almost all in minor key turn and get jumbled into these soft swelling pianos and words that could never in millions of years be mine, but are so very close to home all the same. You're so many Paublo Neruda poems, and sometimes I think you know. Thank you for being quiet with me, for being a kind of perfect to me. Thank you for everything you think is too small to notice but you do anyway. I hope you have a wonderful birthday, I hope you get exactly what you want, especially when you try to talk yourself out of it. I hope you know this house is never empty or closed for you.
