A Letter From a 23 Year Old

Dear 23 year old me, it’s the time of year where I sit down and write a letter to everything that being a twenty-three year old has meant to me.

Just like every year, when the clock struck 12:00 on November 9, it wasn’t like I magically became this full-fledged, all-knowing twenty-three year old who suddenly had it all figured out and knew what I wanted or who I was. I felt the same. I just knew in my head that it was my birthday and that I was another year older.

And that’s such a weird feeling because I always had this idea in my head that as a kid that once you turn another year older, all of a sudden you’re wiser, braver, more courageous—-you’re just all around different because you are suddenly older. But it doesn’t always happen that way or as instantaneously.

It’s such an unexplainable and complex concept—-age and time. You can be a certain age at a certain time, and still feel like you are not that age at that time; sometimes age truly is just a number.

Because if I am being completely honest, sometimes it doesn’t even feel like I am twenty-three, yet alone that I am going to be turning twenty-four when yesterday it just felt like I was turning twenty-two and just starting my career and not really knowing who I was or what life had in store yet. I still feel like sometimes I’m still stuck in 2020, sitting at my kitchen table, learning on Zoom University, and other days I startle awake at the fact that it’s been four years since the pandemic started and I have now been a teacher for three years and have grown up as a teacher and a person. It boggles my mind how inexplicably fast and slow time can be—-such a juxtaposing concepts that hold so much true.

I feel like the older you get, the more time passes by quickly.

It’s like one second it’s Monday, and then you blink and it’s Friday, and you’re stuck in this feeling of disassociation and confusion of how you ended up from Point A to Point B without even having a moment to breathe.

Most days feel like I’m going through the motions or the routine—-the tedium of being more of an adult.

I wish time wouldn’t go by so fast.

I really did.

I wish I could feel myself enjoying each second, minute, hour, and day before it truly slips away and I can never get it back. I feel like most days, I work, go home, unwind, work, and repeat. In between the work and the unwinding, I try to find moments for myself or spend time with friends and family, but I never find myself truly living in that moment because I’m always so in my head about what I could be doing or the next moment. Or most times, I’m too exhausted to appreciate the moments that I appreciate having, but don’t show it because my eyes are halfway to closing. I wish I could savor time more and enjoy the moments for myself because I feel time slipping like grains through my fingers, wishing I could get every moment back—-mostly the precious moments that bring a beatific smile to my face due to the effervescent I feel in my body, heart, and mind.

I wish sometimes that being an adult didn’t feel like time is speeding up because you have all these responsibilities that you can’t enjoy the moments that actually matter.

And I kind of touched on this idea in my last letter to myself with how I felt like being twenty-two, I really lost myself to the tediousness of work, that I never made time for myself. I lost myself to the responsibilities of being an adult who had to buy groceries, cook, clean, do laundry, clean my car, take my car for maintenance, and all these adult things you have to do for yourself now. I wouldn’t say I feel more confident in doing these tasks, but I do feel used to them because I have done all these tasks so much that they feel as natural as breathing. What becomes of your life now when all you say is that going to work, cooking, cleaning, and paying bills feels as natural as breathing? When does that ever feel right?

I don’t know if that makes sense.

I guess what I am saying is that I have gotten used to being an adult with responsibilities now, but it just feels disheartening that being an adult with so much responsibilities feels natural enough that my life feels dull and monotonous, that feels acceptable—-that that dull monotony feels okay. When it shouldn’t. And that’s sort of the feeling I felt a lot with starting to become more of an adult last year, and being an actual adult this year.

I don’t want to fall into this dull pattern or feeling like I am not living my life for myself. I don’t know if that feeling will ever fade for me, or if that’s a constant feeling all adults feel. It is kind of dismaying to feel like I still feel like the routine adult who was losing herself last year, and to feel like nothing has changed, but maybe just have gotten a bit harder in the sense that I push my feelings of this dull pattern down because I think that’s just life and I have to accept it. But I shouldn’t. I should still get to live for myself and do things that bring me joy because I’m still a young adult and I should enjoy it.

I think it’s crazy how much kids are in a rush to grow up.

Trust me, I tell my students everyday to enjoy being a kid because being an adult is not what it seems 🤪.

I watched this video recently where this Tik Tok/Instagram famous poet, if you will, was speaking about wishing she could back and relive the nostalgia of her youth. While listening to this woman speak, there was a calm cadence and quality to her voice that felt like the right hug when you’ve been carrying around all this heaviness. In this poem, she spoke about the feeling of playing outside again or the memory of a cold winter and rushing down the stairs in excitement as one does as a kid on Christmas morning. Something happened to my eyes. They started to water. My heart started to yearn as if a rope was pulling it back through time as the movie reel of every positive moment played in my head—-moments I do wish I could relive. Times were easier back then when you could just be a kid and not have to worry about so much or stress about politics, bills, relationships. You could just play outside and the biggest problem would be when your parents would yell at you to come back home as the sun was setting or getting frustrated at you because you didn’t know how to add the numbers up the way they learned how. I often think about when we were younger, our problems were so trivial but they seem like such huge issues back then because that was all we ever knew.

And then we grow up.

Somehow being eight years-old becomes being eighteen and then that becomes being twenty-three, and now you’re wondering what happened to all those years in between and where the time went because you were just a kid, then a teenager who was stressed and overworked by the public education system, only to be more burnt out by the nine-to-five system.

Time just goes by way too quickly.

There was something else I read recently about how when you are younger, days and years feel longer because your experiences, for the most part, are new—-what you experience is fresh. Your first friend. Your first vacation. The first time you went to school. The first time you moved somewhere different. The first time you went on vacation. The first time you went to a concert. The first time you had your first kiss. The first time you went on a date. The firsts of so many. However, as you get older, all these firsts bleed into experiences of seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, etc. and these moments don’t feel as meaningful or memorable because they already happened—-we already experienced them. We get used to the experiences. They don’t have the shiny, glossy newness that have our eyes bugling out of our head because we are so filled with wonder. Our eyes start to lose their luster, the more we experience similar things. We get comfortable. We get used to things. We get complacent.

We start to lose our sense of wonder.

We start to lose our sense of passion.

We start to lose our sense of time.

We start to lose all these precious entities because we let ourselves get so used to things, that we don’t see them as things to be excited about anymore. We see these things as life.

Life is precious. Life is beautiful. Life is messy.

Life should never be settled into a box and tucked away with a bow of complacency because we get older and we lose track of time and ourselves.

We need to hold onto our sense of wonder, our sense of passion because that is what keeps life enthralling—-wonder and passion keeps life powerful.

We have to change our perspective into thinking that we are experiencing things for the first time again, even if it is an adult. Because, yes, we may have experienced something when we were younger, but gosh knows we are not that age anymore. So why not experience these things with new eyes with our new age?

I never want to lose my sense of wonder or passion, as dumb as that may sound.

Wait, let me correct myself, it’s not dumb.

Wonder and passion keep you alive. It’s what makes time feel endless because you are so wrapped up in living a moment that time ceases to exist.

I did travel this year. It’s been a long time coming, as the greatest *cough cough Taylor Swift cough cough** would say.

All jokes aside, traveling was the best thing I could have ever done for myself, and I knew it all these years. My heart finally answered that siren’s call, and it was glorious. I don’t remember the last time I was filled with so much childlike wonder, passion, enthusiasm, and curiosity. I felt like I was born to the world again in more ways than one; born in the sense of getting to explore places I have never been and born again in the sense that a part of me feels changed to have actually seen more to the world than the bubble I had lived in for the majority of my life.

There was just a sense of time being nonexistent when I finally took the leap and got on a plane somewhere. Most days feel like a routine, but when I was on this trip, somehow waking up early didn’t feel painful or staying out late didn’t make me grumpy the next day. I don’t know, I’m just not really a morning person and I also don’t enjoy staying up past ten o’clock. But for some reason, I didn’t mind staying up until two o’clock and showering later. I didn’t mind sleeping on a pull out table that turned into a bed because I was doing things I have never done before. What is life if not doing things you have never done before? And I don’t attribute the lack of negative emotions due to being on vacation, but a greater reason. I felt at peace. I felt at ease. I felt like I had time. I felt like I could wake up, enjoy my breakfast, and I had this whole day ahead to fill with doing new things that I could have never dreamed of, but could now experience because I now had the opportunity.

There truly is no greater feeling that having the whole day ahead of you, and you’re excited to meet what the day has in store for you. I felt like I was standing at the edge of a mountain, looking down at the soft puffiness of the clouds, the serenity of rolling hills, and knew that if I just let myself fall, I would be okay. I was free.

And I haven’t felt that way for a long time. I haven’t noticed I haven’t felt that way in a long time. And don’t get me wrong, I am grateful to experience each day, even the hard days, but feeling boundless was a luxury my heart forgot how to feel ever since I was a kid and realized that I now had to grow up.

I know a lot of people can attest to this, but they say they can spend hours in IKEA—that they could get lost in it. I never really understood what people meant when they did say they would spend HOURS in IKEA until I spent practically four hours in an IKEA 😂. The furniture? The meatballs? The chicken tenders? The knick knacks? Impeccable. Truly, what an amazing concept to stage different parts of a home and then have a whole a** food court that makes you feel like you are eating Swedish food right from Grandma’s house, and then before you leave, you pass by all the things you want to grab and buy. Genius. But I’m not here to rant and rave about my IKEA experience. The point of my IKEA story was that I didn’t even realize that I had spent that many hours in IKEA. I get irritated if I walk into a grocery store and spend more than half an hour there. I get irritated because I’m used to grocery shopping. I’m not used to IKEA.

But I think we get so lost in feeling discouraged and irritated by everyday things, that time goes by faster because we aren’t enjoying ourselves. We kind of let time run with how fast we want that moment to leave. I mean, the work day seems to be sooooo slow for most of us, but also when the work day is half hour, I know I always ask myself, “Where did the time go?” Truly, because how did I got from the morning to now having lunch to now getting ready to go home. What did I even accomplish that day? What did I even do? I mean, I did enjoy myself, but did I really if time flew by so quickly that I couldn’t even fully enjoy myself? I enjoyed myself when I was shopping at IKEA because I didn’t even notice that the clock was ticking, ticking, ticking, and the sun was about to set.

Maybe time well spent, is time that feels endless.

Being another twenty-three has made me reflect a lot about how life slips by so quickly, that I need to enjoy myself more for the time I do have, and spend more time doing things that make time feel infinite.

But i ask myself this now a lot as a twenty-three year old.

Where did the time go?

A lot of the time when I ask myself this question, I feel my heart sobbing and my mind starts replaying a reel of every moment of where that time has gone.

There are definitely moments I am proud of, and there are moments that I do think I should have done differently, but I truly do like to think that even those moments I would have changed was time well spent. I think for most of us, we can look back and think about exact moments we regretted or we would change, but I also know that those moments shaped me into the person I am today. Sure, I don’t think I should have stayed in my dorm room every afternoon and night, studying with a whiteboard for exams that literally mean nothing to me now, and gosh knows who knows where all that knowledge went, but I don’t completely regret doing so. I mean, at the time, studying and getting fairly good grades was my priority, but spending all those moments feeling stuck inside was something I wish I didn’t feel when I was at the precipice of becoming an adult. I wish I took that leap more. There are also the moments I wish I could have gone out more to experience forming stronger friendships or relationships instead of being basically locked inside my house for the better part of two years because there was a lethal virus around the entirety of the world 😅. I think we all feel like time was stolen from us during that year. Even so, as odd as this may sound, I’m also grateful for the reprieve that that isolation gifted me. I felt like up until 2020, I thought I had mended from things that I struggled with as a teen, but the actual healing I did in those isolated years felt like wearing a cast on the problem and watching myself heal rather than put a band-aid over a broken bone. I took the time to focus on what I actually needed and what felt best for me rather than to keep chugging on, acting like I am okay when really I was still hurting and navigating all these newfound emotions of being an adult and having certain freedoms.

And now, here I am at twenty-three, going on twenty-four, and I’m wondering how everyone around me is getting married, having babies, buying houses, and I feel like I’ve barely taken the first steps into the world of true adulthood like they have. I can’t even fathom that next year will be a quarter of my life, and I sometimes I feel so unaccomplished and like I have nothing to show of myself but all the work I put into myself and my career, that I have no one to share it with. And gosh, this sounds like a spiral, but my mind has been a tornado this entire year, trying to make sense of the chaos around me and the meaning of feeling like I’m still this young-adult, but also I’m starting to hit the point where I’m not.

I just feel like I’m falling behind in my own race even if I know that the only person I am racing is the expectations in my mind.

I don’t know. I just think that when I was younger, I had all these ideas of where I would be by now—-in a relationship with someone I love and want to build a life with, moved out of my parents home, being a proud dog mom, and publishing a book; all these dreams and expectations that feel farther than ever, as if I’m reaching for this star that keeps twinkling away. I know I am the hardest critique of myself, but sometimes, I do grieve for the girl who thought she would have her life figured out and things will be perfect because that’s how I always imagined my life would be when I was older.

It’s funny how life truly never turns out how you expect it. It’s also funny how as an adult, you also realize how much everyone doesn’t know what they’re doing; there’s some comfort in knowing we’re all just as lost. I used to think that adults just knew everything until I became the adult that knew absolutely nothing. A part of me feels like I’ve let myself down for not having accomplished as much or experienced as much as others. But then I catch myself and remember that I know I have accomplished a lot, even if my accomplishments differ from my initial ideas or other people’s accomplishments.

This year I taught my first song fest with my second grade class. Gosh, was that one of the most fun experiences as a teacher; I swear, I was more excited about song fest than my actual kids. I don’t know, I just distinctly remember doing song fest as a kid and loathing every second of the experience; I didn’t enjoy carrying out this big, plastic chair; sitting in the blazing sun for hours; wearing an uncomfortable outfit; having my picture taken constantly and feeling insecure about it. But somehow, as an adult, I loved song fest. I felt like I was healing the parts of myself that detested singing and dancing back then because I was so self-conscious about what I looked like or what people thought of me, that I didn’t enjoy it. As an adult, there’s this freeing sense of inhibition where you truly don’t care what people think of you, or at least, what kids think of you. So I let myself be the fool and be excited for them because they truly do feel like my kids.

I actually got through my first year of teaching second grade.

Just typing that brings chills to my arms, and a glisten to my eyes. It’s been a journey for sure to go from teaching a group of five-year-olds for three weeks and feeling like you abounded them, to teaching seven-year-olds and feeling like they were not quite yours. Everyday, I battled the sense of being an imposter in my own classroom and head because I never felt like I deserved where I was. I constantly felt on guard and like every second, someone was waiting for me to mess up and fail. I didn’t want to fail anyone more than I already failed myself. So I gave last year everything I could even if that meant, everything came from a well of nothing. Not in the sense that I didn’t appreciate teaching second grade, but I was giving these kids everything I could—-knowledge, love, compassion, understanding, humor—when I had nothing left in me. I was pulling from the recesses of myself to give them every, single, part of me because they trusted me as their teacher, as this adult in their life. I had to be there for them, even if it meant I couldn’t really be there for myself.

And during that time, I kept telling myself that, I can rest during summer. I can process everything during summer. Summer will be the break.

I can’t even describe the sense of relief I felt when the final bell rang, and summer sang its announcement like a bold proclamation of rest.

I needed that rest.

I always knew I needed to step away when I couldn’t.

Because when I came back to work, my heart swelled with how much I missed my old kids and appreciated them. I never fully appreciated the moments I had with my kids because I wasn’t in the headspace to appreciate them. I was in this constant survival mode of exhaust—-trying to get through the next moment and day—-that savoring every moment with my second grade angels was like trying to see through a metal wall. I couldn’t. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t feel. I couldn’t appreciate what I had when I had it because I hadn’t grieved and let go the way I knew I needed. And when I saw them again, I felt punched in the heart with how much I wished I could go back and do it all over again with them so I could enjoy my time with them from a clearer and healthy headspace.

But I couldn’t.

But I could cherish the memories I did make with them, and that I do always. I just never fully realized how much teaching second grade meant to me until it did. I don’t regret switching grade levels and giving up what I still love and very much would want to try again, but saying I didn’t regret my choice wasn’t even something I could say a year ago. It kind of goes to show how much I needed that break to be in a place to say I didn’t have any regrets.

Honestly, I think switching grades was oddly, and wondrously one of the most best things to happen.

I don’t know. I feel like switching grades was meant to happen and everything else that followed. I just don’t see how things could have been different because my second grade angels are a group of kids I fully believe I was supposed to meet and I am grateful that I did; they weren’t supposed to be my kids, but somehow they were.

As mentioned previously, I went on my first trip in fourteen years, and I felt like once I cam back home, life felt different. The small town I grew up in, felt like someone shrunk it in the dryer in the time I was gone. The sidewalk felt different as I ran on it. The houses looked different. The people seemed different. Or maybe I was different. It’s hard to describe, but once your world opens up, I feel like I realized how much I confined myself to one part of the world—-my bubble—that now that bubble had burst, I could clearly see how much more life had to offer.

Life does not end just because you are getting older.

Life continues, hopefully, and you can still learn new things about yourself and others.

And life continues to change around you as much as you would like time to slow down.

Change is something I have never been great with.

I never loved when I felt uprooted from every house growing up, never having a real sense of home.

I never loved feeling like my parents were always passing ships in my life, never really a beacon I could go to or buoy I could hold onto.

I never loved feeling left a box of puppies left on the sidewalk as my older brother and sister left to figure out their own lives, while I was stuck trying to salvage what was left of ours.

I never enjoyed feeling like I had to give up something I loved for the absolute unknown because I wasn’t supported in the way that I deserved.

Change and I are antonyms.

Change and I repel.

But perhaps, this year is the stepping stone to many uncomfortable changes. And I guess, being uncomfortable is synonymous to change because what is change if not the act of being pushed out of your comfort.

I don’t think I have changed much since I’ve turned twenty, but I do feel like I have changed incrementally; subtle changes are better than no changes at all.

I do walk with more confidence and pride in myself even if it’s not the most confidence or pride. Just the fact that I can say that I walk with my head held higher is a feat within itself when I would usually scurry with my head down, afraid to be seen or be an inconvenience.

I do speak up for myself or speak louder than what people would always label as a “mouse.” Being a teacher with some attitude helps with that for sure. I guess, I’m just more comfortable being myself because I have been given the space to be my most honest self and not feel rejected by others from it. When you hear your whole life, that you’re “too quiet” or “too shy” or “not pretty or smart enough,” it’s easy to shut down every part of yourself that wants to live boldly. I shut those parts of myself down for years, thinking I had to be what others wanted me to be or that all I could ever be was this label. But being myself without fear, without apology, has been the most freeing form of being me. I don’t want to go back to being this person who fit into the boxes people made her feel stuck in.

I do have a lot to think about about where I want to be now. That’s a very loaded conversation and thought that’s been weighing on my heart for years, more prominently the last month. But I just think about how I’m at this place now where I do feel like I need my own space, or I need a chance in place. As much as that pains me to say. I do feel like I need a chance because the same things haven’t been working for me for years. And that’s not to say I don’t think I haven’t grown as a young adult, but I do believe I have disilluded myself to thinking I have made great growth when I know I have been really afraid to take the leaps I know I should take whether that is with cutting off harmful realtionships, leaving places that don’t make me feel safe or appreciated, or hiding from connections I have always sought for.

People have always said nothing changes if nothing changes, and I truly believe that.

I think it’s time for a bigger change, a bigger chance, than I have been allowing myself for years.

I think I am finally in a place where I can say that I want that for myself because I have had the time and space to kind of heal and process the ups and downs life throws at you. I think I want a change, and I want to go after it. I don’t want to be someone who sits around in my own life or who watches my life go by through a window without living it anymore. I don’t want to be the person who only works my life away because that’s all I’ve ever known.

I want a change as much as I don’t want to accept that I don’t like how I feel when change happens.

But I know that I need to do that for myself.

I hope being twenty-four brings you the most beautiful, hopeful, and peaceful changes. I know change can be terrifying—-change can probably be one of the scariest things to experience—-but if we never allow ourselves the chance to change, we never allow ourselves the chance to experience something different. We never allow ourselves to grow. And just because something is different, doesn’t mean that that change is bad. It’s just different from what we’re used to, and most times that can be a good thing. Even so, you learn from all the changes you make, and who says you have to be stuck in a change that you did. At least you tried.

I hope being twenty-four brings you more love than it does anger or hate—-from others or yourself. Love with your whole heart.

Lead with love.

There is no better leader than that.

Feel every emotion to its full capacity even when those emotions are complicated.

Life is too precious to turn your feelings off because you don’t dare to experience them.

I think that’s something so beautiful about you that we never give ourselves credit for—-our ability to feel. We feel so much with our heart and we give so much love because we know what it is like to not feel the love that we wished we had—–we know what it is like to not be shown the love we wish we would have been shown. Always lead out of love, to show others love in actions and words. And don’t be afraid to feel loved by friends, family members who actually care about you, or people you meet that you know you want in your love.

Love can lead you to so many places and experiences, and it can also lead you right back to your sense of self.

I know you haven’t experienced the love you have dreamed of, but keep hoping that there is that person out there for you. Keep holding onto the hope that out there, in this big, chaotic world filed with seven billion people that there is at least one person who matches your heart, energy, and spirit and will feel safe, comfortable, and genuine to you. Never settle for less than someone who makes you feel every emotion you ever felt when you read a romance book or watched a romance movie. Never settle for just anyone because you have never experienced what you thought you would have been now. You deserve the love you have held onto for so long, and you will find that even on the days you don’t believe that for you.

I hope being twenty-four brings more clarity. I feel like I have been stuck in a labyrinth in my mind of where I should be or what I should do next. Most times I hit a dead end, not really sure if I should turn back around and trust a place I have been before because I am comfortable there or because I’m scared to know something else. Sometimes—who am I kidding, all the time—-I overthink about how I don’t know what to do and what’s best for me because of the fear I live in with feeling like I am making the wrong decision. But are their really wrong decisions or just decisions you have to learn from? I know that no matter what I chose, I have to live with my choice, and that’s part of change too. But I truly hope that whatever I decide to do, it brings me clarity, but it also brings me peace.

I hope being twenty-four brings you actual find some semblance of peace. I know you’ve been on the roller coaster that is life, and sometimes you feel like you’ve been growing through one thing after another, without any reprieve, but I hope that you find moments to breathe, and moments to be. It won’t always feel like the whole world is weighing down on you or like you will never know what it feels like to be okay. Trust me, things do get better even if you cannot feel that right now or see that—-hold onto the hope that things will be okay. You have been through so much already, and you never thought you would get through those moments, but by grace and faith, you did. Each time, you did. It may seem like you don’t have a place to settle down or a person to call home, but you do have yourself. And you are your greatest home, and if I’m being quite honest with myself I am really proud of the person you have become and the person you have cumulatively carried all these years.

I saw in a video recently how when you turn a certain age, you are not just turning that age, you are a cumulation of all those ages before you.

You are who you were at five.

You are who you were at eight.

You are who you are at thirteen.

You are who you are at eighteen.

You are who you are at twenty.

You are who you are at twenty-two.

We are a cumulation of years and experiences, and we are built of so much strength.

Sometimes I forget the strength I’ve built is

still there even when it crumbles

There’s still a foundation there

That will hold me up when I break

Even when my whole world shakes

My foundation is still there.

I wrote this the other night, contemplating everything that I have been through and realized that I have been built like a fortress to protect myself, and no matter how much life shakes me and how much I break, I’m still here.

I’m still standing.

I mean, some days, most days, I feel like lying in a fetal position or going into the corner or a room to feel like i am the smallest thing there, but I’m still here.

And I am grateful to be here.

I am absolutely thankful for another year and chance to grow and experience things for myself.

Life is so precious, and the older I get, the more I realize I don’t want to waste my time on things that don’t matter to me, people who do not value me, or experiences that do not make me feel joyful or full of love. Because why would I want to waste my time on things that do not make me happy and with people who do not appreciate who I am?

I have spent so much of my life feeling sorry for who I am—-like I wasn’t enough, like I took up too much space. I am done making myself feel smaller for other people to feel bigger. You are done with letting yourself be this person you never wanted to be, but others made you to be. I’m sorry for the way others hurt you and made you feel like you never belonged here.

But you did.

Keep going. Keep showing up for yourself. Keep loving and feeling everything you can. Keep trying. Keep laughing. Keep making stupid jokes. Keep reading. Keep writing. Keep crying. Keep running.

Keep living.

As much as you can in this life of yours.

Things will be okay one day. I hope that for you so much more than you realize.

I know being at this age has hurt you, and some of the other ages that have come before, but you had never let those moments break you. Don’t let this break you either. One day you will look back and read this, and smile or laugh or cry just thinking about every single heavy or happy emotion you felt, and you will look at those moments as trivial because you got through it. You will get through this moment too.

Today is your special day—the one day—you get to feel as special as no one had ever made you feel, so you better dang enjoy it because you deserve a good day and more.

I hope you nothing but the most love forever and always,

Here’s to you,