Happy Birthday, Cheastypants!

Oh, you're never going to believe it, world. I, Amazing Cheastypants, have been on this planet 31 years, as of right now. I know, I know, the years have just flown by. Lucky for me, I am ageless. Thus, while having accumulated the wisdom and experience of 31 years, you would never know it to look at me. I have absolutely no wrinkles, nary a gray hair, and a startling lack of sagging bits. I only wish all of you could be so lucky. Perhaps this Christmas that will be my gift to the world: Amazing Cheastypants's Anti-Aging Potion. Also remarkably good for healing bruises when applied topically, and from time to time has been known to turn spontaneously into gold dust, which of course explains why the air often shimmers magically when I walk by.

So yes. It is my birthday, and while I've spend many years trying to pretend birthdays weren't that big a deal, and oh-i-didn't-want-to-draw-attention-to-myself and so on and so forth, I have now decided that is nonsense. It is my birthday, and I give you all, friends, family, internet, two assignments, both of which I hope you will enjoy.

Assignment Number One: As many of you know, on my friends' and families' birthdays I like to make a big deal out of the person whose birthday it is. Well now it's my birthday, and despite what I'm sure is my rather outsized ego, I'm certainly not going to wax lyrical about myself on this of all days. Instead, my precious petunias, I ask you to do it for me. Let loose your inner poet, unleash your deepest Dickens. You'll have to do it anyway when we eventually get around to my funeral, but frankly I'd rather hear it today. Enthuse away, world, and wish me a happy birthday, either in the comments, or via email. Happy birthday, Cheastypants!

Assignment Number Two: Your second assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to spread the birthday love. Go find that person you greet daily with a peck on the cheek and give them an "I haven't seen you in two years" hug. Write a letter (on paper! imagine that!) to the sister that lives on the other side of the country, and tell them how much they mean to you, and why. Get in contact with that 12th grade teacher that made you imagine life in a new way, and tell them thank you. Sit your children down and tell them exactly why they are the most special people in the universe, and how they're going to set the world on fire. I don't know, get creative, have fun with it, but do it. It'll make that person's day, and you'll help me pay back some serious karmic debt I owe from last May.

Last spring when I was in the living hell of preparing for my comprehensive exams, I went to housesit for a professor of mine right before the big test, and she had done one of the nicest things anybody's ever done for me. I walked in the house lugging bags and boxes of books, and found that every room in the house was covered in dozens of star-shaped yellow sticky notes with silly little encouraging slogans on them. "It's Cheasty's world," one of them proclaimed. "Everybody else just lives in it!" On the kitchen window: "You can't stop Cheasty, you can only hope to contain her!" I opened the bathroom door, and saw "Cheasty is a winner!" and "Cheasty is a superstar!" on the mirror. She'd left me a bottle of wine, carefully labeled "Cheasty's Special Elixir." (Am I really so transparent?) Anyway, point is, it probably only took her 10 minutes to do it, but those silly sticky notes made me smile, and made me feel more confident, more capable, and more supported in my task than I had before. I'll never be able to thank her enough for that extra boost to help me through a really tough time.



Spread the love!