Happy birthday to my beautiful wife, Elysha. It wasn’t exactly a spectacular birthday.
I spent about eight hours in an Elk’s Lodge watching Charlie compete in his very first speed-cubing competition. Then, our dinner plans with friends were canceled because of the snow, leaving us home with the kids, eating take-out, and watching a movie.
Not the most celebratory means of marking her special day.
Happily, she enjoyed lunch with her parents and spent the afternoon with Clara, but I had hoped to play a slightly more significant role in her day.
Planning to be out for dinner, I didn’t even have a cake. Thankfully, her colleagues gave her cupcakes on Friday, so except for the one Charlie dropped on the floor, frosting-side down, we were able to sing “Happy Birthday,” and she was able to blow out some candles.
Still, it should’ve been more.
Especially for someone like Elysha. I was recently lamenting the life decisions of a certain friend, who is choosing stasis over struggle and failing to pursue goals he once set for himself simply because pursuing those goals would involve hard work, sacrifice, and conquering fear.
“I don’t understand complacency,” I said to her. “Don’t people understand how quickly regret will catch up with them?”
“You don’t think I’m complacent?” Elysha asked, which was the strangest, dumbest question she may have ever asked me.
Elysha is anything but complacent. First and foremost, she’s a constantly evolving, endlessly expanding mother, spouse, daughter, sister, and friend to so many. Always in motion, always seeking to help, always striving to be better than she was the day before.
She’s also a kindergarten teacher – a ridiculous job that no adult should be forced to endure – who also spent every weekend and many weeknights last year studying to become an ESOL teacher.
When we launched Speak Up in 2013, I asked if she wanted to host the shows. She didn’t. Standing before audiences and performing was nothing she ever wanted or dreamed of doing, but she did it anyway, deciding she didn’t want to take a backseat in our fledgling business. She did the hard, scary, challenging thing, and she excelled.
Today, she is the most important part of Speak Up. She is the consistently funny, constantly connective, endlessly empathetic face that our audiences have come to adore.
A few years ago, she decided to learn to play the ukulele. Today, she is a ukulele player. She’s even played and sung in public to large audiences of strangers.
She’s a cook and baker, a knitter and a sewer, and a reader and a writer. She’s decorated our home. She found two cats that have brought us such joy when her husband wasn’t so sure it was a good idea.
Having never run before, she decided to run a 5K a few years ago, so she trained for months and did.
Having never decorated for Christmas, she now transforms our home into a Hallmark greeting card every year.
Complacent? Hardly.
Deserving of a better birthday? Definitely.
