30 in 30: Year 1

1989:

Dear Little One,

Congratulations!  You have made through an entire year of life.  Crazy, right?  Well, they say that the first year is the hardest... or... something.  That...that probably applies to parenthood, and not infancy, but who am I to say? 

After all, '89 was a pretty crazy year.  George Bush Sr. is the sworn in as president, the Exxon-Valdez nearly destroys the Prince William Sound, the Tienanmen Square protests take place, the same-sex civil unions are legalized for the first time in history in Denmark, and the Berlin Wall fell, just to name a few things.  September 18 of this year is... sort of unremarkable.  An alleged coup was foiled in Burkina Faso (I highly stress the use of the word "alleged" - it's actually a pretty interesting tale of friendship, politics, and betrayal, but I could easily believe that something like this was a setup, and not an actual coup.) 

Meanwhile, you're more concerned with learning how to like... exist.  Crawling, taking your first steps, eating solid foods.  It's all pretty life-shattering stuff here, baby.  And your family is learning how to live with a new addition in their family.  It's a tough job for them to juggle, kiddo, make no mistake.  Dad's chained to his doctoral studies, Mom's working in the hospital, and your sister is dealing with realizing that she's not the only apple of her parents' eyes anymore, and probably while on the precipice of puberty.  Seriously.  Be nice to her.  For the love of god, don't do anything shitty like, oh iunno, bite her nose as hard as physically possible.

ಠ_ಠ

Your folks are emotionally stunted as is, so trying to explain to them your feelings while your hormones are getting ready to kick it into high gear is probably like setting a punch card on fire so that the ashes fit into a floppy drive for the data to be read. 

But, hey, you're growing up nice and healthy, which is really all anyone can ask for, despite occasionally being mistaken for a boy.  Yeah, Mom believed that old wives tale that cutting your hair when you were a baby would mean luscious hair later, and will continue to believe it for years, so get used to ranging from the pseudo-crew cut to the bowl cut.  I mean, if you had any sense of self-preservation, this might annoy you now, but trust me - far into the future, you... kind of are going to wish that that trend continued (it's a long confusing story, we'll get into it later, baby.  Now is not the time.) 

My daily wisdom to you, little one, is to literally and figuratively take it one step at a time.  Things may seem really slow right now, but life is going to rush at you before you know it, and you might want to tear your surprisingly full head of hair out, but learn to roll with the punches, and you'll get through it alright.

Hearts and Kisses,
You.