As of two days ago – Big Daddy is now officially living up to his name. If 40 isn’t big – I don’t know what is. I don’t mean, big as in old, I mean big as in… big deal! When you reach a milestone birthday – one can’t help but think… “I made it! I got through it. Lots of bumps and bruises along the way, but here I am – and I’m okay!”
Big Daddy wasn’t as thrilled about reaching his milestone birthday, however. I guess, he just had a mild case of the birthday blues leading up to his big day. For the last little while, 4.5 years to be exact, he’s been quietly taking the back seat to his leading ladies.
Now that it’s his moment to shine, he is just not in the celebratory mood. And it was my job to help shake him out of it. Mine… and Little Mama‘s.
But we had to first understand what it was that made him so… unenthused.
- Was it his fear of losing his God-given head of hair?
- Was he afraid to acknowledge that we’re all getting older, including the people he loves most? (I know, that’s what I continue to struggle with).
- Was it because he doesn’t feel he’s where he needs to be by 40?
- Was it because he’s generally a very low key guy and knew that milestone anything calls for nothing BUT attention?
- Was he missing his crew back at home, and didn’t feel the need to celebrate without them? (And at this point, home is all over the place).
- Or was it just because he felt like he should feel a little poopy about turning 40 and was merely following the masses? (although we all know that 40 is really the new 20s, but I digress…)
In any event, I wasn’t going to entertain any of this hullaballoo, and decided it was time to pull him out of his protective shell and expose the awesomeness that is my husband. I decided it was time to celebrate him.
But how?
Well – the month isn’t over yet, and I have a couple amazing plans up my sleeve (more on a later post), but for his actually birthday, I wanted to make sure he felt the love. And as much as Little Mama and I love him – we knew we had to give him BIG love on his big day.
So I called in the troops.
Big Daddy and I have been notorious for taking multiple leaps of faith throughout our 16 years together. We ventured into unknown territory 3 times in our lives. Not for vacation or adventure purposes like normal humans do, but we actually set up shop and settled down. We have made big decisions to “settle down” three times in our lives, and to this day, we have yet to feel settled down. I guess it’s just how we’re built.
We have lived on only 2 continents, but have moved over 15 times. That’s a lot of lower back compromised! Along the way, we met some pretty amazing individuals: People who have touched our hearts and left a lasting impression. These aren’t just people who merely held great dinner conversation and entertained us with a song and dance, or gave us high fives when our local team made a goal. These are people that held our hands, scratched our backs, hugged the boo boos away, fed us until our tummies hurt, laughed with us until we cried, gave us job opportunities fresh out of college when no one else would, planned every detail of our wedding and child birth, slapped sense into us when we were off kilter, housed us and rolled up their sleeves to help while we played musical houses, stood up for us when we were too cautious to do it ourselves, and cried with us during every pregnancy loss. These are people who loved us without condition, never placed judgement, and always welcomed us into their hearts as family. These are the people that helped us in some way to be a better version of ourselves.
These people… are home to us.
Some of these individuals are actual family members. Big Daddy and I have lived thousands of miles away from family for as long as we have been together. We miss them with every ounce of our being. Living on an island, we sometimes wonder if we did Little Mama a disservice by taking away the opportunity of being surrounded by cousins, aunts, uncles, God parents and the other set of grandparents. There isn’t a day we don’t miss our family and friends who live thousands of miles away. Moreover, how will I be able to pull off planning something special to celebrate Big Daddy‘s milestone birthday without these very people?
Well – I decided it was time to get interactive. Being obsessed, heavily reliant on, err… comfortable with social media – I figured I’d put my skills to good use and reach out to all corners of the world to help with a very special greeting for the birthday boy. With only 24 hours to pull this off – I decided to give him a special surprise that would make his heart swell and his eyes water. I decided to let him have his family and friends as close to him as possible on his special day. And since I couldn’t possibly afford to fly all 40+ of them to our city, we settled for this instead…
40 (PLUS) birthday candles from across the oceans were lit in honor of our very loved 40 year old!
Having only hours to complete this project, from reaching out individually, to holding full on conversations with these amazing people we haven’t seen or spoken to for ages, to opening up hundreds of emails, to downloading and cropping each photo, to trying how to figure out how to make this project into a feasible shape while fitting in all these amazing faces holding a candle (I am definitely far from being a photoshop power user) – this would have otherwise been a chore. Instead, looking through each email, seeing these familiar faces and how eager each of them were to send us a birthday candle selfie – really touched my heart. I teared up as I was receiving all the greetings one by one, and the tears resumed when it all came together. I was blown away by the light and love that all our close friends and family sent our way – specifically to the birthday boy.
In no specific order, I placed each photo Tetris-style into the four and zero shape while simply hoping for the best. Every person in this collage has a special connection with Big Daddy. Some are blood related, some knew him as a child, some pulled all nighters with him in college, some knew him through me but connected with him beyond our mutual acquaintance, some experienced grief with him, some made him laugh daily, and two of them actually created him! They all play distinct roles in his life, but all of them have one thing in common: They all love him, they all inspire him, and every single one of them taught him something meaningful that he has integrated into his life today as a father and as a husband. (Whoops – make that three things in common..)
We couldn’t possibly create something this special without blowing it up into a poster for him to see every time he wakes up in the morning, and right before he goes to bed at night. He will also be reminded that he is 40, and that’s just the way it has to be. The truth hurts, buddy. Just go with it.
Little Mama was so excited to present this poster to Big Daddy, and could barely get through the day waiting to give it to him, after it was printed. So we decided to do a delivery at his office, which has quickly become our annual tradition for his birthday. Big Daddy was lost for words and needed a moment to soak it all in. It immediately dawned on him that the distance is not a factor when love is this tangible.
Speaking of love, we continued the celebration and the happy tears with yummy dinner and sweet desserts.
Someone had quickly forgotten who the celebrant of tonight’s milestone celebration was – and was not surprisingly, intoxicated with glee (and a little too much sugar).
All in all, I think we did good with convincing Big Daddy that 40 is indeed, the new 20 – and most importantly, that he is loved and valued from all corners of the world. And if our plan didn’t work, hey – at least we got a good dose of nostalgia out of it. A special thank you to all our friends and family who put their smartphones to good use, exercised their natural ability to take a killer selfie, and made someone’s entire year. Even from miles away, you are cherished, and we are grateful for you. This little project was just as much about YOU, as it was about the celebrant himself.
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p style=”text-align: center;”>LITTLE MAMA’S LOOK:: WANT IT? GET IT!
Outerwear :: River Island Girls black leather-look waterfall jacket | Top :: Blue Heart Knit Tunic with belt (similar Sofia Dress here | Accessories :: Ralph Lauren Pointelle Tights | Footwear :: Joe Fresh Pom Pom Faux Fur black Boots (similar Rachel Shoes Athena Lined Pom Pom Boot here)
Distance ain’t nothing but a number – reach out to your loved ones,
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