Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
The last birthday in our family’s winter cluster is mine, and I’m 45 today. That 5 in there is really pushing the idea that 50 is coming, but you know what? Let it come. I’m the strongest I’ve ever been, physically and emotionally, and I love getting older.
I already made sewing intentions, so my birthday ones for 2025 are pretty loose: Keep being a dilettante, find more ways to help people, scroll less/knit more … and until 2028 at least, don’t go looking at the devil’s butthole.
It’s Doc’s birthday today! How do you talk about a bedrock person in your life? We’ve only been together 10 years but he’s changed me for the better so much, just by being so quietly good and open and generous.
He’s level headed, he’ll talk things through with me as my anxiety demands, he has real opinions on clothes and decor (he doesn’t just agree to be agreeable), and he’s always doing something to make someone happy: This very morning he’s stopping for bagels for his team, on his birthday.
I’m so lucky he’s in my life. Happy birthday, honey! Toby and I love you.
It’s my sister-in-law’s birthday today! She’s so smart and capable, just an all-around good person. If last year’s theme was, “How does she do it all?”, this year’s theme is, “Wow, she just does it all so well.”
She’s just so competent. Doc and I are in the process of getting wills/trusts together for each other and I didn’t even have to think about who I wanted to be in charge of everything after him: I know Altair can and will do it.
She started volunteering with Skyler’s CAP division, which somehow required her learning how to fly drones, which meant she had to get FAA-certified. She pretty much shrugged, learned how to read flight maps, studied for her test, and got it done.
She just finished another post-grad degree, which required a couple years of weekends and another thesis, which I got to read. I’m no PLM specialist but even I understood that the methods she was proposing were really smart and innovative.
What a smart, capable, loving human she is! We’re lucky to have her in our lives. Happy birthday, we love you.
My big brother is 48 today! I look back on previous birthday posts to make sure I get the ages right (easier than math) and it struck me how lucky I am that my brother is good people.
Last year I wrote he was “utterly convinced about right and wrong,” and only reading it this year did I realize that also describes me. Two siblings with Convictions could be a recipe for disaster, but he has a Harris/Walz yard sign. I remember how upset he got hearing about Matthew Shepard long ago. He’s never liked cops.
We fundamentally agree, because we’re fundamentally the same–same parents, same memories, same genetics. He remembers what made me spit my milk out at dinner 35 years ago, I remember what upset him in our 20s. There are jokes online about “the mortifying ordeal of being known” and let me tell you, that is a sibling relationship in a nutshell. I’m just thankful to be known by a good person, who loves me, whom I love. Happy birthday!
It’s my dad’s 77th birthday today! He probably doesn’t feel that lucky currently–he had his bank account info stolen and had to go through all that headache–but we are definitely lucky to have him in our lives. Who else would have every tool his kids need for any project? Who else would have taught me how to do tile? Who else would have inspired Skyler to join the Civil Air Patrol?
I usually skim through previous year’s birthday posts before I write a new one (mostly so I can get the number right) and over the last few years he’s dealt with eye surgery, cycling accidents, rebuilding his life after Mom…and he just “keeps on keeping on.” He always has.
I remember being so surprised in 2019 when he told me he was listening to First Aid Kit’s “My Silver Lining” (I shouldn’t have been; he’s always been in tune with pop culture). I didn’t know how he found it but I realized it was perfect for him:
Gotta keep on going,
Looking straight out on the road,
Can’t worry ’bout what’s behind you
Or what’s coming for you further up the road.
I try not to hold on to what is gone,
I try to do right what is wrong,
I try to keep on keeping on.
We’re all glad you’ve kept on keeping on for another year, Dad. Happy birthday!
Our nephew is 13 today and truly, how did that happen? Who is this adult in this picture, piloting a literal airplane?!!
He’s been involved in Civil Air Patrol for a little under a year and has already flown Cessnas and gliders and drones, gone on encampment, and done leadership training. He hasn’t stopped ranking up, either.
CAP is a really great example of this kid knowing what he wants–he wanted to fly planes, so here he is thriving in a cool organization. He’s always been like that, even when he was little and trying to figure out how to keep the iPad all to himself.
He’s alarmingly smart and got his parents’ curiosity: In the course of a Sunday afternoon, he asked Grandpa to explain the difference between analog and digital radio scanners and had Matt tell him how DNS works. He’ll explain things to me that I’ve never even thought about and I always learn something new when we hang out.
He may be flying planes, but I still remember these days:
Happy birthday, Bubbs! You are so loved.
My mom would have been 76 today. Spring is so hard without her: her birthday, Easter, knowing how much she’d gloat over every sunny day and new flower. At the same time, now I gloat over every sunny day and flower. I tried to make Easter special this year. And today I will celebrate spring flowers and maybe even take a trip to the mall (she loved a sale almost as much as flowers).
I think of this Cheryl Strayed essay so much now. Especially today:
Thirty years gone and my mother is always with me. Thirty years gone and I still ache for her every day. Thirty years gone and my sorrow has sweetened into gratitude. How lucky I am to have been her daughter. To still be. To feel her shimmering in my bones with every step.
…The kindest and most meaningful thing anyone ever says to me is: your mother would be proud of you. Finding a way in my grief to become the woman who my mother raised me to be is the most important way I have honored my mother.
It’s my birthday today! I don’t do involved lists of goals anymore, but I do set an intention. And this year I want to keep being a dilettante and reconnect even more with things that I loved as a kid: playing with paper and building LEGO sets, but also listening to music and concert-going and whatever else pops up. (I just discovered there’s a huge Breyer model horse community on Instagram, watch out.)
The point isn’t to be good at it, the point is to do it and delight in it. This illustration of Sister Corita Kent rule (by Caitlin Keegan) sums it up:
SOMEONE has a birthday tomorrow and, while I know he hates to be the center of attention, I can’t not do a birthday post. (Uh, and presents. And cake. But at least I stopped trying to make a party happen!)
I’ve called him my rock before, but he’s really more like a buttress: He gives people support to help them grow on their own. I’ve seen him do it with coworkers and friends and family; definitely with me.
I’ve never met anyone as conscientiously caring, whether that takes the form of “buttressing” or recurring donations to causes he cares about or checking in daily with his social network or just showing up twice weekly at his parents’ house to help with what needs helping.
My time with him has made me a better person and I know his friends would agree. Happy birthday, honey. I love you!
My sister-in-law is 45 today! I know it’s a cliche, but I don’t know how she does it all. I was thinking about her during my busy weekend when I was baking and sewing and making jam and cleaning the house after a 40+ hour week. She does all that, too, plus mom stuff plus volunteering plus she’s going to school (again!).
All that busy-ness, though? It’s because she wants to make things better: for her family, by being able to earn more with another degree; for her community, by showing up to change things; for her friends and siblings by making herself available to help.
Lately I’ve been trying to let go of how I think things should be and just show up for the people I love, because the showing up is the point. Altair knows this and I’m trying to be more like her–busy and tired but showing up anyway, over and over and over.
Happy birthday, Altair! We love you.