Birthday Friend

Today is my birthday!!! Yeah!!! I used to celebrate my day anyway I wanted. Then I realized I needed more. So my birthday week was born. Through the years that was cool, but somewhere along the way it just wasn't enough. Even a birthday month wasn't enough!

The years were passing but quick and each birthday I would look in the mirror and see my image slowly change. I wasn't a young girl anymore. I was a woman.

Ok I thought, this has got to be adjusted. I guess I was mumbling to myself that year because both my husband and Babyhead both said together: "what?" I stared blankly at their identical faces and said "this birthday thing." And my birthday season was born.

Then tonight Babyhead asked me a great question: who have I known the longest? I sat and pondered the answer. I thought about my friends and family and all the people I've met through these many years I've been skipping about on this earth. Then I thought about the way I reviewed my face every year, being in the beauty biz and all. I had a good answer. There has been one good friend that has stood by me all these crazy years, from adolescence to just this morning when I looked in my bathroom mirror. This friend has watched me grow from a kid to a girl to a woman. From a bride to a wife and from a wife to a mother. This friend was never hard on me, but soothed me through the many phases I've passed through, and most of all never judged me. Instead took care of me so that I could look in the mirror and be pleasantly surprised that I still looked like myself, even though it felt like the years were careening out of control. This friend helped keep me together during times of stress and change, always the same always a constant. I grew to appreciate what importance this friend had in my world. Consistency. Tenderness. Softness. I rambled on as Babyhead stared at me eyes glazed over. "Who Momma?" Babyhead asked, "who is it? Do I know them?" I was about to answer before the phone rang and off he ran to talk to Grandma. Suddenly I was alone in the kitchen. I walked quietly into the bathroom and pulled out my dear friend.

My Cetaphil.

She's been with me since I was about 9 years old, when eczema made me hate looking in the mirror. She healed me. She removed make-up I had no business wearing through my 20's. She made sure I ALWAYS went to bed barefaced, almost every night for as long as I can remember. She stayed with me through almost every day of my life-it's true.

My face belongs to her and I'm good with that. Happy birthday to us!!!