HEY GUYS! GUESS WHAT DAY IT IS! IT’S ASHLEY’S BIRTHDAY! Of course this morning I was thinking about our sisterhood and our friendship before that. I was scrolling through my photo stream, through all of our crazy memories trying to find the right Instagram birthday post and then I thought, what’s better than an Instagram post? Well a blog post, of course.
The first time I met Ashley was at Silvercity Gloucester in Ottawa. My brother invited me to the movies with him and a “friend” and I knew it was a big deal because my brother has asked me to do something fun with him maybe three times our whole lives. My bro stopped hanging out with me when I hit double digits and he became the cool one. He used to walk a block ahead of me so that no one would know we were related. We were two of maybe ten people of colour in our school and in our neighbourhood. I’m not sure who he thought he was fooling.
In any case he invited me to the movies with him and a friend and then proceeded to show up late. For those of you who’ve been to any Silvercity, Ash and I stood at the top of the front stairs, at opposite ends of that wide entrance, eyeing each other up but too shy to actually talk to each other until John got there. At which point, his first question was, “Why didn’t you just introduce yourselves?” Mind you, this was at a time where camera’s on your phones might have been a thing but data plans weren’t all that common so neither of us knew who we were supposed to be meeting. I think I just aged both of us. Kids these days will never appreciate how far technology has come in a very short window of time.
I liked Ash straight away which I was happy about because the girl before that, I was not a fan of at all. Since then, I’ve constantly marveled at how much Ash and I have in common despite the fact that I’m seven years older than she is. I think the fact that I hit the age of 18 and didn’t really evolve after that helped significantly. In fact, most people who know both of us would probably agree that she is the more mature one. I think being a mom does that to you where I mostly live a life of self-indulgence. We both love to craft, love a lot of the same movies and read the same books. When we visit each other we can chat for hours or sit in the same room knitting together silently or doing our own thing. I don’t think my bro could have planned this better if he’d tried.
That’s not to say our families haven’t had awkward in law moments. Our families and our family lives growing up were and are very, very different. The win is that Ash and I get to navigate those moments together as allies and friends and for that I’m eternally grateful.
So here’s to Ash! Have an amazing birthday and thank you for everything – for being an awesome sister to me, mom to my nieces, and wife to my bro. Thank you for starting this business that we both love so so so much and thank you for all of the teeny tiny things that you do that sometimes slip by unnoticed. You’re the official Greatest of All Time and you have it in writing in case someone tries to contest that. Love ya sis and I can’t wait to celebrate your birthday with you!
To everyone else, thank you for stopping by! Come back next week and see what we have in store for you. Until then, PEACE to you and your fam and happy knitting!