My mother suffers from a terminal genetic disorder, Vasculer Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Despite extreme pain and limited mobility, she brightens the world for everyone around her. She's known for her incredible fashion sense, positive energy, novels and poetry, and Wilde-worthy wit. Needless to say, her birthday is a day I celebrate because it's a reminder she's still here. The world needs her. I need her.

December 21. What a day.

Dear Mom,

You are a goddess. A Sagittarius goddess, to be in fact.

But let's talk about you, shall we?

You. You, you, you.

You keep me dreaming and fighting and learning and growing and laughing and going.

You're my rock and my dearest confidant, a queen and a badass, a part-time deviant and a powerhouse.

You make me want to take on the world and go into battle and laugh the whole time.

Even on your darkest days, you bring light into my life. You set the bar and you raise the stakes and you never relent. Even when the whole world thinks you're down, you get back up. Even when they tap you out, you get back up. And you keep going. Against the odds. Breaking the rules. Shattering records. You. Keep. Going. You don't just take the swings life nails you with --- you reset and run back in screaming, fists up and you KICK ITS ASS.

You handle everything with grace and a sense of humor and an inner power that shocks and awes the masses -- even the experiences that intrinsically seem to want to strip you of those things. You never lose yourself without coming out the other side with a stronger idea of who you were in the first place. When you don't like something, you learn about it. You redefine it. You recreate it. I've never know anyone who can do that. How do you do that?

No matter how bad it gets, for you or for me, or how tired, or how much it hurts, I know that any moment I see myself on the front lines, I'll always look over and see you at my side. And I keep getting up too. I keep going.

You make me believe. In everything worth believing in. Hope. Resilience. Possibility. Dreams. Purpose. Love. Family. Rebirth. The energy in an ultimatum. The rewards of commitment. Words. Storytelling. The enigma of the relentless. A list that can hardly be surmised by the very words we put our futures in.

I love you. I'll always be the giggling little girl trying to trudge around in your shoes - your boots to school, your heels on stairs. You are someone I could only aspire to coming close to. Everyday of your life, you redefine a legacy that I carry with me like it's part of who I am.

There are few things in this world I cherish more than being your daughter.

I am proud of everything you are. It doesn't matter how old I get, I always want to be like you. And in the moments of life I can't help but fall short, you're always the one person that can ground me when I'm falling away from my center.

I adore you.
I celebrate you.
I see you.

You mean the world to me. You created my world. You painted every color I see, set the stage for every thought in my head, every word that comes out of my mouth, every story I weave.

And what would I be without words? Colors? Stories?

You created my world.

You made us happy and safe. You gave us things to believe in. You taught us everything from ethics to English, studying to shopping, to the art of living to the purpose of enduring. You taught us to laugh. To be kind. To think twice. To protect ourselves, and each other. To love ourselves, and each other. To come back from mistakes. To come back from falling down or tapping out, fists up.

For all those years, there was nothing but you. And now we're here, and you're still the center of everything else. You're like a hometown.

This entire earth gets filtered through the reality you created.

And I'm so thankful that it's beautiful, and curious, and wonder-struck, and safe as long as we never forget who we are, and where we come from.

We have you to thank for everything.

You're such a wonderful, special part of me, of us, and of this world.

You can fulfill your dream of moving to California, or work in New York, or see Paris, or watch theatre in London, or sit on Waikiki beach. It doesn't matter where you are. Wherever you are, that is my hometown.

Thank you for always being my safe place. Thank you for being superhuman.

I love you, Mom. Happy birthday.