Separated At Birth, But This Day Is All Hers.

As I have grown older, I have gotten really good at counting my blessings. (If you don’t do this on a regular basis, I highly recommend it!)

One such blessing—one of the biggest!—is my sistuh-from-anuthuh-muthuh, my chosen family, Liz.

I know I mention her in about 42.67% of my posts these days, but that should give you a pretty good idea of how important she is to me.

By the way, that percentage will continue to grow because I haven’t even written about last week’s visit to her house yet.

Anyway.

We met online, which doesn’t sound as weird today as it did a few years ago, and I thank my lucky stars that we connected on that one 2008 evening on Twitter in a conversation about our pets and the messes they make: it was the start of a beautiful friendship. I only wish one of us had the foresight to “favorite” those tweets so we could go back and read them, and laugh. Or snort-laugh, as we do.

I could write for days and still not adequately convey the impact Liz has had on me. If you know me at all, I think you already know anyway. I hope SHE knows. I think she does.

The timing of my trip to see her last week was based not only on the fact that springtime is a great time to visit New Jersey, but also because I wanted us to celebrate her milestone birthday together, just a few days early. She has a twin brother, and no disrespect to him (*waves to Steve*) but I wanted her to have a day that was ONLY about her. I’m so glad we did just that; she told me that she had never, ever had her very own birthday celebration!

It was a week ago today that we took the train to Manhattan and enjoyed steaks and the best cosmos we have ever had (ever ever EVER!!) in a restaurant that was old-style classy with Frank Sinatra playing overhead. We shared stories that never have been shared—and never WILL BE shared—online while the wait staff fussed over us, and then we made our way down the street to the Gershwin to take in a performance of “Wicked”, her first. It was the perfect day and I wish we could do it all over again today. And tomorrow. And the next day.

Happy birthday, my beautiful friend and sistuh. You make 50 look downright amazeballs. I hope you have a day that is as special and awesome as you are, and I look forward to watching you continue kicking ass and taking names, as you do when you’re #JerseyStrong. I love you.