hAPPY Earth Day!!
April 22, 2020 — Happy Earth Day! As I sit down to write today, I am not feeling a particular BURSTING about any particular topic. Undaunted, I will just keep typing, typing, typing (thank you, Dory, for that wisdom)
I might want to share with you how important it is to let go of stuff. I know that as an organizer, y’all expect me to say things like that, but I mean it on lots of levels.
This morning I was standing at the counter, waiting for my toast to finish toasting, and a picture of me in my birthday party dress scrolled by on the digital slideshow and I smiled a deeply satisfactory smile thinking about what an epic birthday party I had! (it was my 50th) It took quite a lot of dreaming, researching, and planning to pull it off. I had the time of my life, and I will treasure the memories forever.
What if I had been in the midst of all that planning, and then: the CORONAVIRUS appeared and “pooped” my party?? That would have sucked. BAD. A few short months later, I would have canceled my party and been saaaaaaad.
So many people are having to celebrate milestones and anniversaries and birthdays in this quarantine. And people are finding out they’re pregnant, having babies, even having their FIRST BABIES in this uncertain time!
Seriously mind-blowing.
What makes me the saddest, as a mom of high school kids right now, is all the seniors who are missing their Spring semesters of well-earned senioritis and riding the wave of college acceptances, Proms, banquets, shows, skirting final exams and across the stage at their hard-earned, well-deserved Graduations.
Again, mind-blowing.
These kids are in a critical stage of their lives, where they are “almost adults” sniffing at the next phase of life…college or a gap year or whatever they are headed to, but it’s got to feel weird right now. I don’t have a senior myself, but there are many kids I am close to that I ache for their loss.
It’s an actual loss.
Ever the positivity nut, the silver-lining seeker, I will do my best in this tough situation.
To all those who are having to celebrate in quarantine, you must GET REALLY CREATIVE. You will have to work a little harder to make it memorable. But DO IT. You will forever look back to said celebration in this portion of 2020, and say, “look what I did to make a tough situation a bit better! I didn’t let COVID-19 poop on my party!!”
Earlier this week, a dear friend of mine did a GREAT job of it, celebrating her birthday with a HILARIOUS video (her FIRST video ever on FaceBook) and she NAILED it!! It was the best thing I’ve ever seen. She basically threw herself a birthday party and could literally go on tour with that schtick!! (if you are FB friends with Sandy Burton, go NOW and watch that video)
Y’all, life isn’t fair. But guess what? It doesn’t have to be for you to take what you’ve got and give it your all. It’s up to YOU to make the memories. Give that gift to your future self!
Go forth and CELEBRATE! Happy birthday, happy anniversary, happy graduation, all the “happys” are so necessary, especially in quarantine!
Cheers! –ryan:)
PS I thank you for reading, it means to much to me!!
