Simple Man
"Be a simple kind of man, be something you love and understand."
Introduction: 21
For the past few months I had been completely indifferent about my twenty-first birthday. At first I thought it was because I'd already been twenty-one for the last four years, even had the plastic to prove it, I thought there was no value in a mile stone so many people wait years to reach since going into a bar and ordering a White Russian or a Bloody Mary or even a shot of straight up liquor was no longer a novelty. I realize now though that birthday parties, like blow dryers and chocolate- warm summers in front of an air conditioner and warm showers that leave you feeling clean and cozy before you bundle yourself in blankets and go to bed, are one of the many luxuries most people including myself took for granted before the world ended.
Today I would have woken up to the sweet aroma of pancakes cooking on a hot griddle and the sound of grease sizzling and popping as it fried the eggs and bacon my momma would have had cooking on the stove. I would have walked into our kitchen and seen a big beaming smile on her delicate face before she brushed the hair out of mine and planted a firm loving kiss on my forehead mumbling "Happy birthday baby girl." into it. We would have had mimosas and spent a quiet afternoon just us girls watching chick flicks and getting tipsy together for the first time. When my dad came home early from the station (because he always did on my birthday) and my kid brother got home from school, we'd dig into a chocolate on chocolate with chocolate chips cake and open presents. We'd float on pillow soft clouds of nostalgia as mom an dad gushed over baby pictures and old school photos and they told my brother stories about what life and his big sister were like before he was born. For that one whole day, everything bad would disappear, and we would be the version of the Grimes family all of King County thought we were. Loving. Happy. Perfect.
