Celebrating Life

Milestones are celebrated. Birthdays, christenings, graduations, weddings. There are events in our lives for which we gather together and celebrate. Society has deemed them important; we’ve given them weight and meaning. They mark big changes in our lives, choices, commitments, coming of age.

I’ve been blessed to celebrate many of these moments, some my own, some my friends and families.

Every culture throughout human history has marked important events in some way or another. In modern Western society we often do this with a ceremony, a party, and with the giving of gifts and eating of good food. But what if your life, and the choices you make, doesn’t create the events society has decided to celebrate? What if you don’t want children, or aren’t getting married?

There is a moment in the seminal 90’s TV show Sex in the City in which Carrie goes to the baby shower. When leaving Carrie discovers her shoes are gone. The friend whose baby shower it is shames Carrie for caring and for the single, childless life she lives. Eventually Carrie, who has spent huge amounts of time and energy celebrating the weddings and children of her friends, decides to celebrate a marriage to herself, prompting the friend who shamed her to replace the shoes. Whilst Carries actions are primarily to convince her friend to replace her lost shoes, her closing monologue has greater meaning:

“The fact is, sometimes it’s hard to walk in a single woman’s shoes. That’s why we need really special ones now and then, to make the walk a little more fun.”

Carrie is right, and I don’t mean about the shoes (though for many women she’s right about that too). She is right that sometimes, when your life milestones and choices aren’t the same as everyone else’s, it’s nice having something special to make those moments more fun.

When I came up with the van plan, I knew instantly that this was a choice I wanted to celebrate. That it was the kind of monumental choice that changes your life, and that much like a wedding or the birth of a child, it deserved to be observed seriously, joyously, and with those I love. And so I made an invitation for once the van is built, inviting loved ones to join me for a van warming party and ceremony.

In doing so I had something wonderful confirmed to me. Unlike Carrie, my friends and family don’t judge my choices they embrace them, they support them, they want to celebrate them.

Having that illustrated so clearly makes me feel truly blessed. Knowing that when I set out on my new life, I am doing so from a community of friends who love and support me makes the future more exciting, warmer and more welcoming. As I build my tiny home, this love and support couldn’t matter more.

Ps. My van party invite also happens to make the best possible logo for this newsletter!