Happy #37, Scott!

To the man who wears a million hats, has a million responsibilities, and gives me a million reasons to smile every day – Happy Birthday, Scott!!!

For you, Scott:

This birthday post serves as one of your presents as well. As I looked back through the dozens of posts that you have started over the past few months that are sitting in our “drafts” folder on the blog, I realize now that the biggest gift you have given me (and others, I imagine) are actually not big – they are all of the small moments.

In the first letter you tucked in the back of Gone With the Wind on the night we re-met in December 2012, you wrote about how people file away the major moments of their life, flagging the memories that define eras and years. You didn’t want that for us – you wanted the smaller moments, too. The every day.  The in-betweens. You wanted to live a life that was not built upon milestones, but on each individual brick that we lay together. I’ve never met a person who has the ability to turn the mundane, the uneventful days into the most memorable. But you can, and you do. 

We’ve lost a few years of our life here, and much of it is my fault. I’d vow to write the posts, and days and weeks would pass by and you’d subtly encourage (or often downright beg) me to sit down and write. Write about the pool. The summer we had. How we are trying to survive this crazy moment in the world of Covid. Dates we went on this fall. Trips to our favorite wineries. Lists of pure nonsense that we used to laugh so hard writing. See this one, or this one, or even this one…

And for one reason or another, the words never took shape. And for so long, this place kept record of our little moments, the small ones you wanted to remember. The other night as we spent an hour sliding through photos from our years eating and drinking our way through DC and Alexandria (and missing the people who made our life so very rich there) I felt the ache, the one I know you’ve felt for awhile. That dull ache that those small moments since we moved back home have been lost, replaced by worry and responsibility and the frustrations of keeping up with all of our various responsibilities. 

I want nothing more than to document those moments again – for you. For us. I want to slide through posts and photos in another 5 years and know that the dull ache has been replaced by happy memories, recorded for our family and our friends and our life here in Medina. 

2020 has been so very hard. And I am ok with letting much of this year fade away. But 2021 has so much potential, and I know it will be filled with reasons to write. Dating. Living. Loving. And probably another dozen snow photos to share with the world, because I’ve never known someone to love snow as much as you do…

So for you, you handsome birthday boy – we will revive this little corner of our universe. You are the most inspiring and motivating force in my world, and let’s face it – I’m just tired of hearing you beg for posts ;) 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCOTT!!!