Happy Birthday to Anne (the small things)

For my wife, on her birthday…a few words:

We spent last weekend out of town at a friends house for the 4th.  It was mid-afternoon and we had returned from running errands and getting things ready for the big meal later in the day.  Everyone was kind of on their own, taking it easy.  I was in the kitchen, rummaging around, and I looked out the window to see Anne outside, by herself, blowing bubbles.  Apparently, I hadn’t really noticed the fact that while out shopping for cook-out groceries, Anne had purchased an enormous container of bubbles from the kids aisle.  I stood there watching her for a few minutes.  She was spinning and flinging the wand around and my heart just got soft… She was beautiful.  In that moment, rather suddenly and quite completely, I realized how lucky that I am.  Looking out the window at my beautiful girl enjoying such a small thing…blowing bubbles…I was reminded that these small moments are the things that I will look back on with the fondest of memories.  We don’t usually take pictures of these moments.  We wait until the big things; the births, the weddings, the trips, the awards, the graduations…  We have lots of those images.  Images from our successes and even images from some of our failures. But so often, these small moments, these quiet moments, just get wrapped up in our minds as “ordinary” and folded into our vast and often non-specific memory…  Well, on my best days, I must confess that I do believe (wholeheartedly) that these little things that we can so easily pass over or forget or fail to recognize…these are the little moments, choices, and interactions that are the truly integral components that make up a life.  We may hope that our lives are punctuated by interesting, exciting, and noteworthy signposts…but no matter how many big adventures, the majority of our lives will be spent in-between these events.  And my friends, it is in that space that life is really happening…

It may be self-evident, or corny, or whatever…but it doesn’t make it any less true.

I know that it might seem strange to be so public in my birthday wishes for Anne, but to me, no matter how cheesy it may seem, it feels important.  You see, I may not know many things.  In fact, I know that I don’t.  I know that I am constantly changing and rethinking and learning.  But there are a few things that I know for sure.  And one of them is that, somehow, as a young kid, I knew that to spend our time knitting our lives together would be of the best decisions that I could ever make.  Today is her birthday.  They can be a bit underwhelming honestly, but maybe the best thing you can hope for on your birthday is to make some space and think a little bit about your life.  And today, as I think back to seeing her outside blowing bubbles, one of a million small moments I get to be a part of, I am particularly thankful for my ever-partner, for my friend, for my beautiful traveling companion.  I don’t think that my life will ever be one that anyone would write a book about, but as I get older, the more I realize that I am writing my own book, right now, with my wife, whether I notice it or not…

So here’s to the small things, to the little moments, to blowing bubbles.  I hope that you make space for them.

Oh yeah, and happy birthday to Anne.

Anne from Ryan Booth on Vimeo.