Flashback Friday: The Blender

So, when I started this blog I made a conscious decision that I wasn’t going to start acknowledging everyone’s birthdays. The thing is, I have a big family, lots of nieces and nephews, and a lot of really good friends… which means this blog would be a constant birthday central.

But today’s is different because my birthday and Susie’s birthday is essentially one in the same. And me celebrating without her, and vice versa, is just… well… against the laws of the universe. I think it ranks right up there with the whole E=mc2 thing.

When Suz and I met in college [if you haven’t read that story, you really should] we were instant best friends… and then we began to discover that fate had shaped our lives in a way that predestined us to meet.

My brother and her cousin’s husband worked and socialized together. My sister and her cousin’s wife are best friends. My dad and her uncle served on an insurance board together. One of her mom’s best friends and my mom are related. And to top it all off, our birthdays are two days apart.

I, of course, am older. That’s why I get to boss her around.

And it’s no surprise that when I asked you all to tell me your favorite birthday gift the other day, the one that came to my mind involved Suz. We lived together in college with our friends Amy and Wente [who I’ve referred to before as The Big House Girls], and we really loved having parties. In my early years of college, parties were more like you’d imagine college house parties to be. But by the time we moved into the Big House, Susie, Wente and Amy were in grad school for their Speech Pathology degrees and I was finishing classes while working at an ad agency… so our parties were more of the barbeque variety.

Think grad students, younger college students, professors, a priest, the deacon at our church and his wife… pretty much everyone and anyone was invited, and it was always a lot of fun. The only problem we had, as poor college students, is that we could put enough money together to buy the strawberries and the lime and the alcohol… but we couldn’t afford the blender.

So, if you wanted a margarita or a daiquiri… you had to bring your own blender. It gave B.Y.O.B. a whole new meaning.

Guess what these ridiculously excited people got at their joint birthday party? [We were either really excited or were having a contest to see who could open their mouths the widest…]

Seriously. Look at those crazy smiles!

It really seems funny to me looking back, but that was the most excited I’ve probably ever gotten over a birthday gift, and I think it’s true for a couple of reasons. First, I think you always love the simple things more when you’re living life simply. And we really were. We didn’t have anything, but we were happy and at a time in our lives where everything seemed fun.

And mostly it was because, just like everything else, it was about the both of us together. It’s so fitting to share our birthdays, and our presents, because in so many ways we are one in the same. I can’t think of anything we didn’t do together, go through together and deal with together. And all the fun we’ve had together is just the icing on the cake.

Or the salt on the rim of the margarita, in this case.

Even now, when I can’t be out and about doing daily life stuff with her, I get to hear about every detail of every party or event or conversation. She carries me with her, and nothing I do seems real until she knows about it. She’s been one of the best gifts in my life, birthday or not, and I’m so blessed that I don’t have to go through a day of it without her.

Love you, Suzaluza! Welcome to being 36. It’s been a lonely two days at this age without you. :)