Dear Allison, Love Allison

A letter to myself written on my 51st birthday, December 29, 2021

Dear Allison,

Happy birthday! Whatever else happens in life, you know you’ve made it to fifty-one amazing, glorious years. While challenges in 2021 brought heaviness, you were proactive and resilient in seeking out and finding the good. Call it selective memory, but the remembrances are more positive than not. You’ve had a good year and many highlights beyond your first colorectal screening…

  • Granddaddy turned ninety and we are thankful he is still strong in mind, body, and spirit
  • Lots of cooking! I worked through decades of recipes torn from magazines, including the (first annual?) Sweet Sixteen baking tournament for the neighborhood.
  • Jack’s room was officially turned into my office—partly because I was teaching virtually and partly to solidify my empty nester status.
  • Jack graduated from Randolph-Macon College—whoop, whoop!—and promptly moved back home, wiping away my empty nester status. He is caddying, loves his job, and I love having him home. He makes me a proud momma.
  • Katherine ran her first half marathon, traveled to Italy for a study abroad program, is a junior at W & M and had a great first semester as an RA with an apartment. She’s amazing and I’m so proud of her.
  • Live music is back! Saw Drew Holcomb (twice) and the Avett Brothers (twice) including a lifetime highlight of seeing them live at the Red Rocks!
  • Paul turned sixty and we celebrated with a trip to two National Parks. Highlights included hiking the Narrows in Zion and riding a mule around the rim of the Grand Canyon.
  • Hiking Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park with my cousin Cathy. I remember hiking it when I was twenty-five…scrambling those rocks at fifty is a whole different story. Maybe I’ll hike it again when I turn seventy-five?
  • Seeing my G-Phi sisters (and some bears!) and cherishing thirty-three years of friendship
  • On our family vacation, falling in love with San Diego’s sea lions and sunsets.
  • Began my 15th year teaching at Haycock in person and still find joy in teaching.
  • Training with Paul to ride the Seagull Century 100 K bike ride.
  • Paul and I celebrated our 25th anniversary with a cozy all-the-maple-syrup weekend away
  • My writing continues to play a big part of my life. I sold a few books and loved volunteering at the high school to teach a journaling class. This year I was published three times: a poem, an article, and an essay in the New York Times. NYT, baby!

Last year, you turned fifty during a pandemic but you still had 365 glorious days to make the most of the year.  You enjoyed so many adventures with friends and family: new restaurants, hikes, bike rides and more. Today may be your birthday but every day’s a gift. Fifty-one, here we go. We got this!

Happy Birthday, Allison!

Love, Allison

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Baby Moved to Baltimore

Image
It seems forever ago and just yesterday that we dropped Jack off for his freshman year at college. My baby. College. I was overwhelmed with an enormous swelling of pride and a feeling of faith that Jack would soon be thriving and experiencing new possibilities. Mixed in with these emotions were a combination of terror (my baby! How will he ever survive without his mommy?) and grief (my baby! I miss him already). I remember distinctly sobbing as we drove back up Route 95 without him. Even though he was just a short drive away, this new life—college!—felt so distant, so full of unknowns. And he would not have me there by his side—he would have to figure out challenges and obstacles alone. Of course, he wasn’t alone. He was soon surrounded by new friends, professors, and coaches who loved and supported him. He studied (sometimes). He figured things out. He navigated through the “new normal” of the pandemic. He learned. And he graduated. After graduation, he came back home to live. Fro...
Read more

Security to Sporting Goods

Image
Occasionally, I meet a student who says, “I don’t have anything to write about,” so I prompt them with a question. “What did you do this weekend?” Sometimes, that will solve the problem. They’ll exclaim, “Oh, I went over to So-and-so’s house and we built a fort out of all the pillows in the basement.” And they’ll scamper back to their desks with their head full of images and memories and begin to write. Other times, they say, “nothing.” Of course, that’s not true. What they mean is, nothing of consequence. Same old, same old. No trips to the water park, no pony rides at the fair…just a regular weekend with a few video games and a trip to Target with Mom. “There,” I say, “You can write about shopping.” You can write about your mom, how excited she was when she realized she had a coupon for the toothpaste that was also on sale. I mean, who gets excited about toothpaste? Moms do. You can write about how she started with a list, but then lingered in the dollar section looking at the spring...
Read more

Putting Pickleball in its Place

Image
  I tried pickleball once. It didn’t take. It seems I’m in the minority with pickleball courts sprouting up all around me—the pickleball craze is getting crazier by the second. But I stand by my opinion: pickleball is not for me. When I was little, my dad tried to teach me how to play tennis. Multiple times. It didn’t take. I remember once he gave lessons to my entire Girl Scout troop so we could earn a tennis badge. After several tortured weeks of hearing “racquet back early” and “keep your eye on the ball,” I finally sewed the little round emblem onto my sash. And put down my racquet for good. I briefly came out of tennis retirement when I met Paul. I was sitting in my office cubicle when I saw him come out of the bathroom. He had just changed from his suit into his tennis shorts and was heading toward the elevators for an after-work match. And boy, did he look cute in those tennis shorts. When we started dating, he asked me if I knew how to play. “Sure!” I said enthusiasti...
Read more