Birthdays and Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

When I was younger, I liked birthdays. I thought they were awesome...I mean, everyone was paying attention to just one person and treating them special because that day was like a holiday, it was a remembrance of their birth. I still love the idea, but after celebrating Isaac's 19th birthday yesterday, I realized something else about birthdays, and the numbers that they celebrate. The same numbers that we wish for...16...18...21...they come too quickly. We celebrate the transition to "double digits" and into true teenagerdom (usually around 13 years) and then legal driving age, 16 in most states, 18 for being an adult (basically the signification of being able to drive past 9 pm), and 21 for being able to drink legally, if not responsibly. In truth, these numbers represent the same thing as 8, 14, and so on...they represent another year that you have made it through, and unfortunately, one year closer to the end of your life. When I was sitting at Isaac's table yesterday, staring at this man that I love more than anything, I realized that what I was celebrating was his life, another year of his beautiful blue eyes and the arms that I love around me. His parents had the nerve to tell him that it "isn't a big year" just because he's 19...it seems a crime to me to say that just because he is already past 18 and adulthood and not yet legally allowed to drink, it means that his birthday isn't worth celebrating. I celebrate every day I have with him, let alone another year that I can spend being his best friend and his "woman". For anyone to say that one year is more important than the other and to place a value on a year of someone's life is one of the most retarded things I've ever heard. Isaac's birthday, to me, isn't legal drinking age or being an adult, or any of those things...it's one more year we've had together and a grim reminder that we are both getting older, and that, really, there is no time to sit back and wait for the next year to treat someone a certain way when you love them...the time is right now. What if Isaac were to die tomorrow, and I didn't help him to celebrate his birthday just because he was only turning 19? That is one less day that I would've celebrated his life. I can't have that on my conscience, and Isaac, if you're reading this, you in yourself are a celebration of life, and I love you and look up to you more than you know.

In other news, I'm addicted to mint chocolate chip ice cream.

*sigh*