-Justin Timberlake, “Nothin’ Else”

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”

You’re the best!

Love, Carol

(I read that recently, and I’m not sure where. It’s not the first time I’ve read something similar, but it spoke to me.)

I hope your birthday was fantastic. There are good times ahead.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded!

-Widely attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, although there is some reasonable debate on the matter.

Happy birthday, I love you, and by the measure above you are a wild success!

O Me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

Happy Birthday, sucka. Love you.