Birthdays.

So as many of you probably already know, yesterday marked my entry into this world, 24 years ago. Pretty hard to believe that I am getting "that old" - I put this in quotes because any time I refer to being old to someone much older than me, they look at me as though I have personally offended them. Which I likely have. But then again, my good friend's mom last night said this to me: "So next year, Meghan, we will have to have a party for you where everyone wears all black because you will be a QUARTER...CENTURY...OLD!!!" Thank you, I expect to also receive over-the-hill balloons and skull & crossbones party favors.


I think birthdays are kind of a funny thing to celebrate. We all celebrate the day that we emerged from our mothers' wombs and began breathing oxygen - and we get cake for this? I mostly think this is silly because I think that babies are pretty dang ugly when they get their first glimpses of the world. As I have described it before, "We basically say 'Good job on coming out of your mom & emerging as a gooey, ugly, alien-looking thing!'" Yes, I too think that the birth of a human is nothing short of miraculous, but you can't deny that the babies look a little scary at first. No one ever sends out a birth announcement of their precious bundle of joy bawling its head off covered in amniotic fluid and looking a little squished. I can tell you right now that at that moment in time, when I am someday in that position, I will not be obsessing over the beauty of my spawn but instead over the relief I have that the trauma is over. I will think they are the most beautiful thing in the world when they are clean & wearing a cute little hat wrapped in a white blanket. And then I will never be able to take my eyes off it.


Don't let my thoughts on birthdays fool you - I simply adore my birthday. I love the phone calls and texts and birthday cards and another day of the year where calories don't count. I love the free drinks and the attention and the gifts. My dad said it best when he said that "birthdays are special because its the one day a year that you are the center of attention" - and no matter how unselfish you are, it totally rocks to have one day be like that each year.


Perhaps my most favorite part about my birthday is how I am reminded each December 23rd how extremely blessed I am. Not because my mom can make a mean cake or because my dad remembered the exact perfume I wanted - but because I am always overwhelmed by the outpouring of love that I receive each year on this day. I love that my birthday, being around the holidays, warrants multiple days of celebration, usually one with my friends from UW and another with my old friends from home.


Last night, my birthday began with dinner with 2 very dear high school friends and their families - I was struck by the fact that I have now lived in Washington long enough to really be close with my friends families, something that, having moved around a lot during my younger years, is something I truly treasure. I got to see my best friend surprise her mom and grandma (she came home for the holidays from Korea and didn't tell them) and that was the best birthday gift I can imagine. So much love.


After, a group of my close friends from high school came to my house - I was dressed in sweatpants, surrounded by people who defined my teenage years, and it was perfect. We talked over beers about the time "the ninjas" floured my friend's car and it rained the next day; about how every time "Chariots of Fire" came on, my guy friends would perform a slow motion battle scene; about prom asking disasters. We also talked about how one of them goes to Harvard Law school, one lives in Washington DC, one is studying at the UW Medical School - we have all grown up so much, it is simply astounding. I get goosebumps thinking about how special it is that I have such wonderful friends from high school who I am still lucky enough to call my friends - at one point, I was just listening to all of them talk, smiling to myself and thinking "I literally have the most awesome friends from high school, hands down."


Although it is terrifying that we are entering into the age where marriages and children and graduate school and homebuying are common practice, I love to know that there are some things that never change. We all need those constants in our lives - those people, memories, places that although we age, they never seem to. 


Birthdays are the days set out of the year to remind you how much people love you. How can you not be overwhelmed by the power of that?


♥mb.

Romesick.

Dear Rome,


Just thinking about you, thought I would drop you a line. How are you doing over there? America is, ya know, pretty cool I guess - I am enjoying the free water and the public restrooms that are severely lacking in your neck of the woods. I also really love the fact that I now have a dryer again, so that I don't have to put up with line drying all of my clothes. As much as I enjoyed crunchy underwear and tshirts...

Literally,  a Roman Dryer.

I also don't miss tripping over your uneven streets (since I can't seem to grasp the concept of picking my feet up when I walk), the sickly sound that your sirens make (are you sure that the people inside the ambulance are sick or is the siren just wailing about its own pain?) and my daily near-death encounters with various motor vehicles. But, among these things, there are so many things I miss about you.

For the first week, I was undeniably homesick. The realization hit me that I was stuck with you for 2.5 months, and if I didn't like you, I was screwed. I was filled to the brim with fear that the people in my program wouldn't like me, or that worse, they would be weird, and I was also afraid about being so far away from home for so long, in a country filled with people who didn't speak my language. (A trait I began to embrace as it was quite easy to speak about your population without censorship.) However, I remember when I fell in love with you. The first weekend I was with you, I walked all over the city in search of Giolitti (the best gelato on planet earth, and maybe a few other planets as well) and ended up at the McDonalds in front of the Pantheon (which, as you well know, I left part of my heart in.) I was eating curly fries in front of the most intact ancient structure you have to offer, listening to a street performer sing "Wild World" by Cat Stevens and chatting with someone who was a mere acquaintance but who became one of my best friends. I would grow to love these moments.

Doing as the ancient Romans did. (Riiiight...)

My memories with you are countless and precious, and I would not be able to chronicle them all in this letter if I had an entire fortnight to complete it. From the first time I saw the Roman Forum...

I give to you, the Forum.

...and the first time I sampled your pizza...

I would have starved if not for this.

...I became irrevocably enamored with you. You offered me the opportunity to wake up to this every morning:

A view of St.Peter's from the Ponte Sisto.

And for that alone I am eternally grateful. You gave me a great gift in strangers who turned into treasured friends...

Weekending in Florence.

...the opportunity to travel to exotic locales...

Hanging on a mountain in Africa.

...and the chance to experience some of the most beautiful architecture and artwork that mankind has to offer.

I will always be in awe.

You're many years of rich history and tradition imparted on me great knowledge, and you will be proud to know that I still remember most of what I learned from you. And I love to talk about you with anyone who will listen to me. 

It's hard for me to believe it's been almost 2 years since I began my journey through your alleyways. I will always miss the Saldi and the bakery by my apartment and the ancient aqueducts that supplied me with daily water (which I cannot stress enough it's necessity). You helped me forget about things that were bringing me down and you helped me to become who I am today. You gave me so many things that I wish I could give you in return, although I'm sure that as a centuries old city my wisdom ain't got nothing on you.

Part of my lovely Roman entourage.

I passed by the Trevi several times during my days with you, and I threw coins in on a few occasions. The first time, I threw in one, over my left shoulder, with my back to the water, in hopes that this coin would help me someday return to you. On another occasion, I tossed in 2 coins, in the same fashion, for the hopes that I would soon fall in love - I just didn't realize that the object of my love would be you.

I still think about you daily, miss you all the time and wish that I could return to that time in my life when I got to see you each day. You will never know the ways in which you changed me, shaped me. I will someday return to you full of the fondness I feel for you at this moment, and we will relive some of our good times with different sets of amazing people. Nothing can sum up my love for you (and for your glorious Pantheon) better than this:

Love.

I didn't want to let you go. And to be honest, I still don't. I cling to your memory and delight in the fact that I will forever have a part of you with me, just as you will have a part of me with you. 

With love always,

♥mb.

A pair of neglected shoes.

I have this pair of fabulous shoes. Out of the many pairs of shoes that I own, these ones are by far my favorite. They are fairly new, only been worn twice, and have spent most of their life in the trunk of my car, as on my sister's birthday my feet hurt so bad that I had to leave the bar we were at, run to my car, change into my Rainbows and leave them to hang out until I decided to take them inside. (Which, as fate would have it, was yesterday.)


I finally brought them in from their long hibernation in my dark trunk space, set them on my dining room table (a perfect place for shoes, I know), and just admired them. Peep toe, cut out instep, black silk flowers and a delicate stiletto heel - I felt so bad for hiding them from the world in my car for so long. I hardly ever wear heels, but I do really love them. And I started to feel like this pair of shoes in particular was just way too beautiful to spend it's life inside a closet.


You may think all these revelations are silly. And maybe they are. Of course, I understand that fabulous shoes can't possibly comprehend their own beauty. But like shoes, neither can most women. And unlike shoes, we have self-awareness. So why is it so hard to feel good about ourselves?


Women have a huge advantage over men in the fact that we can change our look on a daily basis. We have eyeshadow and mascara and curling irons - even our clothing options are much more diverse; today will it be a dress? leggings? heels? flats? belt? And don't even get me started on hair (braid? no braid? bangs? pinned back?) and accessories (chunky ring? studs or dangles? 1 bracelet or 2?). Men literally wake up, shower & throw on some variation of pants, shirt, jacket and lace up shoes. No wonder we have so many issues - just thinking about what to wear can be stressful.


Not to mention the fact that society (and men) expect all of us to look like Victoria Secret models. Well, maybe not expect, but that is the ideal standard set for us by Hollywood, advertisements, magazines, media of all kinds. We are constantly criticizing each other in things like E!'s "Fashion Police" and Us Weekly's "who wore it best?". If you are a female existing in America and have never had any body image or insecurity issues, you are a far stronger person than I.


The really ridiculous part is that a. the things we wear on our bodies are extraneous and b. our bodies exist to let us live, not to receive constant hate and criticism. I, like many 20-something girls, have struggled with body image issues my entire life. My first real breakthrough in getting myself away from this negative self-talk came when I was down in So Cal visiting my grandparents.


My grandmother has been suffering from congestive heart failure for a while now, but it is starting to be much more limiting than before. At first, she couldn't get around without the help of a walker, and now she needs a wheelchair. She needs assistance to even get up out of bed. And it pains me to see her like that, I can't even comprehend what it must feel like to be so immobile. In realizing her physical limitations, I suddenly felt very thankful for my healthy, albeit fairly out of shape, body. And that's when it hit me like a ton of bricks.


We spend so much time obsessing over "muffin-tops" and the size of our calf muscles when what we should be doing is thanking our bodies for functioning normally and supporting us 24/7. I realized that if I wanted to run 3 miles, I could do it. If I wanted to dance a riverdance, I could do it. If I wanted to climb Mount Rainier, with a little training, I could do it. So why is it that I have spent so much time hating the very thing that allows me to live my life?


It starts to seem trivial and silly when you look at it in that light. Our bodies are just casings for our personalities anyway. The fact that there is so much judgement based on physical appearances is just the product of a nation of insecure people all trying to prove they are worth something. But what if I told you you didn't have to prove it? What if I told you that most of your negativity comes from you and from no one else? What if I told you that beauty doesn't come in a pre-fabricated box like we are led to believe?


So get up, dust yourself off like that beautiful pair of shoes and flaunt yourself. I truly believe that inner beauty creates outer beauty and that if you feel good about yourself, other people will want to be around you. It isn't always easy, just like wearing heels isn't always easy. But, let me tell you, you look a lot more put together with that gorgeous pair of stilettos than you do with tattered converse. (Not that there is anything wrong with tattered converse...) 


Whoever you are, own it. It's when we start to radiate confidence despite everything that we truly start to be beautiful.


♥mb.