So you all have one of those friends, you know the one, who is dripping in accolades, swimming in adoration, drowning in perfection. And then that stinking paramount goes and has himself a birthday and you find yourself standing in a Seven-11 at midnight contemplating making one of those posters where you use candy bars to tell the person they are a 'Big Hunk' worth 'One Hundred Grand'. Well, it's miserable.
I have one such friend who is having his birthday this week (yes, week; apparently his mother was in labor for 168 hours) and here's the thing...he's got freaking everything! Perfect wife. Perfect kids. Perfect house. Gold Lexus. I mean really...it's gold...probably real gold, for crying out loud.
I first met him in his perfect house while being doted on by his perfect wife with two of his perfect kids running around my feet. I was young and single and dating my future wife and he was old and married and saddled with children and a mortgage, and I remember this clear thought, "I want what he has." And you know, not in a creepy single white female way...I mean, yes, I thought about moving into his basement and methodically undermining him to his wife, parents, and children and then slowly and steadily easing him out of his own life. I thought about it, but I didn't. But sitting there on his micro suede sofa, I caught a vision of what my life could be. And it changed me. I could have stayed selfish, sexy, and single for the rest of my life, but when I met him and glimpsed his well-planned life, I wanted one.
And so, after ten years of cobbling together my own version of his life, I find myself sitting in my own little house with my own little wife and my own two little kids running around my own two feet, and he is to thank. Who he was changed who I was. And I am so lucky to have been given such a moment. And even now, thinking about such a dear friend, and as it turns out, I still want his life. No, like, for reals. So I'm going back to my original plan. Even now I am crouched in the corner of his master bathroom, typing as quietly as...hang on...
Okay sorry, typing as quietly as I can, trying to decide if his deodorant tastes more like mountain flowers or hotel air freshener...mountain flowers.
Anyway, I guess the only thing I can give him this year for his birthday, is the gift of myself. Or rather the gift of myself standing at the end of his bed taking notes of his sleep habits and painting his toes with my eyelashes.
Happy Birthday, Chris. I'm in your pillow.
