For my mother, on her 65th birthday

(Written in haste on the plane ride from Logan to Newark. Delivered humorously and heartfully as a speech at her birthday brunch party)

I am my mother’s daughter. So much so, that my current job is basically the consolidation of what my mother has done in the last 65 years of her life: manage unmanageable people and projects and sell shoes (of which I now have a full closet of my own). It’s not easy! And if there is anything I’ve learned from that experience in my 29 of them, it’s that I have so much to be thankful for.

My mother is not your average cheerleader. She didn’t stop when she graduated from the squad of Ocean Township High. She is the champion of positivity and selflessness (the latter sometimes to a fault and at the expense of her body fat).

If you ever need the job done, with a smile, a lot of style, and maybe a little bit of granola (if you’re lucky), you can always count on my mother.

You can find her with her signature pair of black miniature poodles, a beautiful designer handbag, and a pair of electric running shoes in which she’s already clocked 10K more steps than you will your entire day. Not just because she was up with the sun but because both her mind and body are constantly moving.

The thing of which I am most proud of my mother — aside from supporting me through two degrees, being my number one blog reader, humoring my cycles of boyfriends, and sheltering me from my father — is how she has begun to take more time for…