Someone shared news with me and I was happy for them.

Happy with them.

Someone else was the voice of unhappiness and they grumbled the slightest bit.

They grumbled just enough for me to realize that it was true.  They were snarky JUST long enough for it to feel sincere. They let me hear the tiny edge in their voice that told me they were the slightest bit not-happy.

And it sucked.

It took a little piece of my happy away.

How can you not be happy when something awesome happens to someone you feel fantastic about?  When you’re truly happy for them you want to jump up and down at their triumph. Don’t you almost burst with foolish pride at their achievement?

Then, why can’t you just be happy for them?

You must be unhappy in your small little places that you can’t at least smile and make it not about you.

You know what they say, if you can’t say something nice, then don’t let me hear it.

Every day is something new.  A reason to be excited.

Whether I’m able to move my leg a little more, or see some progress in my face…there is always something.

And a part of me is worried.  About the friends that will see me like this for the first time this summer.  The ones that have seen me laughing and joking, so sharp and witty, and now they will see me so changed.

I’m worried people will be disappointed.  They won’t get that even though I’m different, I’m still the same.

They don’t understand how I can get so excited because my fingers are moving the tiniest bits.  It’s different now.

But, I can be excited.

I really can.

I believe in my heart Maddie and I would have fallen in love with each other…I know I was already head over heels, she just needed more time to get to know me better.

She would have laughed at all the funny antics her mommy and I pulled.

I most definitely would have been her favorite talk show host.

And you can see that her favorite hobby was Googling for incriminating photos of me.

But we never got that chance and I know my sadness today, on the day she should be celebrating her second birthday, is nothing compared to what her amazing family is experiencing.

All the many should-have-been’s and will-never-be’s are felt deeply as those who love Maddie celebrate each precious day she had…and mourn that there weren’t enough.

Never enough.

Heather and Mike and Drizzle, you are so loved.

Maddie, you are missed, treasured and never forgotten.

Happy birthday, beautiful girl.

On this special day for this special girl, if you’d like to celebrate Maddie’s birthday consider making a loving contribution to the Friends of Maddie Foundation, a charity in Maddie’s honor to aid NICU families.

All photos used and “tweaks” made were approved by MamaSpohr.

Corporations would call it a “Team Building”.

At Aiming Low, we call it “Times when you’d better wear a diaper cause chances are good you might pee a little”.

(I don’t even watch The Office and this is funny…probably because I love Ali Martell…no, I REALLY love Ali Martell)

I mean, come on, there’s not a lot of people you’d want to take a week-long trip with…together 24  hours a day…eating your meals together…sharing all those wonderfully intimate bodily functions.

But I did it with eight ladies of Aiming Low.

It was like the sorority I never got to be a part of in the college I didn’t attend.

It was the Sisterhood of the Traveling Heads.

We did all those things that you give up when you get too old for “sleep overs”.  We ate pizza in bed and laughed so hard we (where WE = Jen) snorted out our nose…we made fun of each other, we stayed up way too late in the night, we called boys and hung up on them.  We let ourselves get back to the parts of us that aren’t buried beneath responsibility, dinner plans, and school pickup schedules.

This trip was full of so many firsts.  Ground Zero, Time Square, Central Park, Boston’s amazing color show, NYC cabbies, The Russian Tea Room, having my life threatened by a homeless person, and the smells….OHTHESMELLS….and the joy of sharing these moments with these special friends, every second cementing our friendships a little deeper.

Thank you, ladies, for taking what could have been a fun trip and turning it into the experience of a lifetime.