Lap 29: The Final Go-Round of the Twenties
Happy birthday, Elizabeth.
You turn twenty-nine today, one last bright lap around the twenties before the thirties rise over the horizon. I’ve been thinking about the year we just lived, how it didn’t so much pass as collect: little moments stacking into something sturdy enough to stand on for another year.
When I try to measure a year with you, the calendar gets outvoted by the snapshots. There’s Friendsgiving laughter baked into the walls with Isa and Lawson, and a Christmas where the lights tried to keep up with your smile. There was salt in the air at the beach and sun on our shoulders by the pool. Days half-lounging, half-cheering while Lolo and Wyatt sliced the water like little comets. There were foam sword fights that ended in ridiculous truces, and evenings surrendered to the couch, where we practiced the noble art of doing nothing together, which is really the secret plot of love.
We climbed mountains this year, too. Boone with family, Pigeon Forge with friends, the kind of road trips that begin as “let’s just go” and end as “remember when?” On the days without mountains, we make a circuit around the block, picking favorite porches and saying hello to neighborhood dogs, turning a short walk into our best talks. Somewhere between the lookouts and the gas-station coffee and the strolls, I realized happiness with you isn’t about the destination so much as the running commentary: the murder-podcast picks, the offhand one-liners, the way everything is better with you in it. You have a talent for turning the everyday hum of life into the music of our lives.
If you squint, you can see the story the photos tell, blue river days by Fort Sumter, birthday candles, pool water diamonds, movie nights with greasy popcorn fingers and the kind of laughter that steals your breath. But the best parts refuse to stay in the frame. The “highlight reel” cheats: some highlights blur into Tuesday errands, the quick hand-squeeze at a red light, the grocery-store dance to a song we love. Others sneak up in a sunset that paints your hair with borrowed fire. The pictures keep the moments; the moments in-between the pictures keep us.
I want to say something wise about the last year of your twenties, but the most honest thing I know is this: every version of you has been my favorite, and somehow the next one always is, too. If your twenties were the prologue, I’m greedy for the chapters ahead. I’ll be there, hands ready, camera steady, heart open, while you do what you’ve always done: make the everyday feel like the good part.
Here’s to lap twenty-nine: to roads we haven’t driven yet, inside jokes we haven’t told yet, late-night talks and easy mornings, and another bright spin around the sun with you.
I love you, Lizzie.
