Today, you are 7670 days old. You have seen 7670 sunrises and sunsets, and have experienced and felt the passing of 184,080 hours and 11,044,800 minutes.
The math will never be down to a tee, because time is ever-flowing. Water is ever-flowing. If fire is strength and passion, then water is gentleness, ruthlessness, and freedom all wrapped up into one.
And you, my dear, are ever-changing. Every minute, every day, there is something new about you, about the way you see the world, about the way you think, feel, and act. There are new people in your life, and your heart is constantly creating and rearranging the rooms inside. It hurts, sometimes. It’s different. It takes time getting used to. The TARDIS may be able to effortlessly shift the rooms and corridors around, but the heart is a different matter. You can’t simply press a few buttons and travel through all of time and space. You can’t easily slip into a dream and fold Paris on top of itself, defy the very laws of gravity. But what you do do is run out of those blue wooden doors with your companions and sonic screwdriver at the ready, ready for the next adventure. You feel, all the years of happiness, of sadness, heart carrying all who have gone before. You have loved and you have remembered.
7670 sunsets have passed by, but they are not forgotten.
JM Barrie believes that, “the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.”
Don’t ever doubt that you can’t do it, because you will always be able to. Your unhappy thoughts can weigh you down, but those rays of light will also lift you into the air. Peter Pan does not know love, many argue, because he is forever a boy. He will never know the true extent of feelings, will never develop that kind of maturity.
I am here to argue that Peter Pan does, in fact, know, feel, and recognize love. He loves adventure. He loves the jungle, he loves flying. He loves Tinkerbell and having the Lost Boys. He loves Neverland, and because a child is boundless in their wide range of emotion and imagination, he will always love those who have gone before- his parents, Wendy Darling, and Tiger Lily. He loves, and I think…sometimes, traipsing through the forest, he forgets that he is also loved in return. His parents, Tinkerbell, the Lost Boys, Neverland itself, Wendy, Tiger Lily. His parents may have lost him to the many joys he alone has known, but never will their love be conditional. The Lost Boys who have left Neverland will also never forget what he has done for them, who he is, and everything that he stands for. Wendy Darling will keep him alive through her words, and Tiger Lily, in that little house with Pine Sap and Tinkerbell by the cliffside, will hold on to him and his memory.
Because there is ever going to be only one Peter Pan.
In much the same way, there is only ever going to be one of you. Through all your flying and sword fights and running through the jungle, there will be battle scars (this one was from when you were climbing a tree and the limb wasn’t sturdy enough, and that one was from swimming too close to the edge of the rocks in the Mermaid Lagoon). They are remnant of what you’ve seen in 7670 days and counting. Hold on to those scars, those stories, and immortalize them with words.
You are important, you are beautiful, you are needed, and you are loved. You will always end up okay.
I love you. There isn’t a day that goes by that I am not grateful that you exist, and that you are in my life in such a huge way. Happy birthday =)