Celebrate

Friday the 22nd was my 32nd birthday, and it will go down in my personal history as one of my landmark awesome birthdays. It was the first birthday I looked forward to in years, especially in recent years, and I spent the whole day completely awestruck at how good it is to be me. To have the family and friends that I have, and to be living the life that I live. I have finally learned to surround myself with everything and everyone that brings me happiness and to not waste a single second on those that don't, and that has truly been the greatest birthday present. If only, if only, if only my dad were here...then, my life would be perfect.

In other completely unrelated news, you know that saying that if you love something, set it free, if it belongs to you, it will come back to you, blah, blah, blah? I have realized - and it seems weird but it's big for me - that while I hope and plan for the World's Cutest Irishman and I to stay together to our last breath, that IF the horror of us ever splitting up were to become a reality, I would be able to let him go. I finally know what it is like to love someone so much that their happiness is paramount, and if that someone were not happy with me, I would have to let him go. It would be reluctantly and not without frantic appeals on my behalf, but ultimately, I would rather have Sean be happy without me than miserable with me. Why is this good news? Because now I get what unselfish love is. I have only ever wanted a man to love me and be with me because I thought someone loving me made me better. I know now it took a certain someone, and he has made me understand that I alone make myself better - I make or break who I am and what I'm about - and his love is the springboard I have needed to jump into life as I am, as Amanda, with or without a ring, 2.8 kids and a white picket fence. To have given me that gift and that clarity is remarkable, and I am indebted to Sean forever. The depth of love I feel for him stuns me every day, and the only thing more stunning to me is that I would be willing to ever let that go - ONLY because I would want him to be happy. The best gift I can ever give Sean is to try to enrich his life as much as he enriches mine, and if that couldn't always happen, then the next best thing I could do for him would be to let him discover his happiness on his own, even if it meant that I wouldn't be along for the ride.

That being said, I love the World's Cutest Irishman ridiculously, I never want to be without him, and I pray to God and all the powers of the universe that I can continue to discover all of the beauty and amazement in this world that my eyes had previously been closed to before Sean opened them for me.