For my 30th birthday all I wanted to do was sit my ass on the beach. The ocean has a way of healing all my wounds, both old and new. And to be honest my 30th birthday is a wound, deep in the knowledge that my life is nothing like I thought it would be when I was an innocent 18 year old debutante. Yes I know that 30 is young. Yes I know that half my life hasn't even been lived yet. But still.....30? Shit......
So here I am in Boca Raton, Florida for my 30th birthday. I have been here since Monday....six days to slowly peel the scab off the wound of thirty. I am here with my cousin, at her home, with her children and her husband and her dogs and cats and her life. Goo Goo Dolls is playing so loudly I can't hear my fingers hit the keyboard; her babies are playing air guitar and dancing in their diapers; loving this moment they will probably not remember in two weeks. ( But this moment is forever in my catalogue.) We have been at the beach all day long with each other along with some new friends of theirs, plus some friends that I have known so I long I can't even remember when we met. I am so saturated with love and satisfaction right now I can't even see the screen through my tears. I'm not feeling the sting of a childless 30; instead I am feeling the overwhelming love of family and earth and God (and to be 100 % honest, some vodka mixed with grapefruit juice).
Mel and my brother and me had a rather tumultuous childhood; caused indirectly (I am sure) by our respective parents' divorces. The three of us spent the majority of our elementary years at our paternal grandparents house watching our grandmother be June Cleaver ( the real life version, too. Not some made up Desperate Housewife's shit) and that was all of our's foundation for life and love and marriage and family and work ethic and really everything. The three of us grew up like siblings; with all the love and hate and competition that true siblings have. Mel and my brother convinced me one time that in order to drink Coca-Cola I had to eat cat food; I didn't even like Coke at that time in my life but I still ate cat food just to prove that in fact I was not a cry-baby like they kept calling me but instead I was a cat food eating, non-diaper wearing warrior that they didn't think I was. Throughout my life I have continued to be that person with the cat food and the coke. Give me something you think I can't do and buddy, I will prove you wrong in ten seconds.
Throughout our life our grandfather, or paw-paw as we called him (some of our cousins called him pontoon) was the epitome of the man that life calls for. He quit school in 5th grade to work on the family farm; he fought against the Nazi's in World War II, he started a business out of his brother's garage when he returned home, battle weary and already a father and needing a way to support his family (which by the way, my brother and father still run. It's called Johnson Auto Electric on Newnan Road in Carrollton.) He watched a black man die on the train tracks on Dixie Street when he was a little boy; the man had been run over by a passing train and everyone just stood there and watched this man slowly bleed to death instead of calling for help just because this man was black. When my grandfather finally started to succumb to Alzheimer's disease in 2001 he still talked about this most powerful and unjust day. Paw-paw taught himself how to do literally everything; draw, paint, photograph, develop photography, make machines that work on car parts. Read, write, love, worship a fair and just Lord, raise a family, trade stocks, put money in a 401k, make home movies. Literally everything, that man taught himself how to do it all. He took part in every moment of mine and my lucky cousins life; there at every basketball game and homecoming court walk and debutante ball and wedding give away ( except for mine, he had been dead for a couple of years. He was still there, though.)
The point of all this rambling, finally.......
Melissa and I have weathered some pretty significant literal and physical storms together. We have gone through life together, and for people that understand what 30 years means you know how much crap this can contain. Yet here we are.....adults. Loving each other so much it hurts. Staying at one's house for a solid week and not getting sick of each other. Getting a balloon and a cream filled cupcake for breakfast on the morning of my 30th. Knowing when the other is too sad to cry, or talk, or dance, or listen or just be. We were taught to be so good to each other from our grandparents. They would be so proud to see how much we love each other, how dedicated we are to staying close and keeping our family heritage strong. Our grandmother would love that Mel and I both make her beloved dressing for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They would love that Mel makes family videos that she and I watch and cry over. They would maybe (hopefully) laugh at how drunk we get together and cuss my husband out for taking random photos of us. They would just be happy that here we are; loving each other and being family.
Thanks, Melissa and Jason for making my 30th so unforgettable (Hard Rock???????) I love you both so much. And the only people I know that can verbalize this love is WSP.........
"After all that I've been through you're the only one that matters. You've never left me in the dark here on my own; I can hear the water rising, let me be your ladder, I promise you'll be dry, never be alone."
With love-
Betsy Danielle
