Anybody who has ever celebrated a birthday with us knows itʼs a pretty big deal. I have never experienced a dull birthday in my life. I can say this because I never had to spend a birthday alone. Even if that one friend couldnʼt show up it didnʼt matter, I had a friend there for life, Ari. Not many people can say that they share a birthday with someone. Yes you can be born on the same day as an individual but it’s not quite the same thing as actually having to share your day with somebody since you were born. I have had the pleasure of sharing my day with someone for 27 years, the greatest person ever, Ari. When we were children growing up our parents made us feel so special on that day. Yes, most kids feel special on their birthday but trust me, this experience was very different. I mean, imagine waking up on your birthday, looking at yourself, wishing yourself a happy birthday, hearing “yourself” wish you the same and then hearing your parents say “Happy birthday, girls!”. We were literally the same person & that was the most amazing part of this experience. I loved sharing my birthday with Ari & I could never picture my first birthday without her to be my 28th birthday. I always imagined that our milestones would be so exciting. For example, when we turned 30, 50, 75, but those things were destroyed forever.

Once December hit everyone would be asking us what our big plans were for our birthday. Ari thought we were the Kardashian’s or something because she was always trying to do it big. We always argued about plans and what we wanted to do. Ari wanted to party, and don’t get me wrong I did too but in a different way. I always would say “my birthday” and she would remind me “our birthday”. My biggest regret was being selfish & now that’s all I can say is “my”. Yes it’s her birthday too but now I feel incredibly terrible saying ours because I had been so selfish. I’ve learned that we as human beings take so much for granted. We don’t even realize how much the little things mean until we have no choice but to deal with the little things face to face. Like my first birthday without her and being the one who had to plan, all by myself. Ari always did the planning and I was so overwhelmed having to do that alone. But my dear friend Adam Borota helped me do everything last year and for that I am grateful. Thank you.
But it was just the day overall that made me sad. Blowing out candles alone for the first time was extremely weird. I blew my candles out all my life. Ari and I used to count to three when we were little, as we got older we got more in sync with just a look. Always coordinating with colors. To me now making a speech about her life. It’s just a hard thing to swallow. The celebration of life, birth is now tarnished for me. I missed a lot of people’s birthday’s in 2017. I just couldn’t do it. It made me sad because I know that she deserved to see another birthday. It’s so simple for people to say to me “live for her”, “celebrate her life”, “have fun for her”. I know that, and if she was gone away for awhile I would be totally ok with that. But, I want people to keep in mind how I feel. Ari is gone forever so for the rest of my life I will always have to celebrate alone.

Our birthday always falls around the Super Bowl, ALWAYS. I mean, that never really mattered because we had our true ones that showed up regardless of the game and other parties. Then we had the people who would try to make one night of the weekend so they could say they came to something. It got to the point where my parents would tell us, “you’ll always have each other that’s all that matters”. So now when I have those people who make plans around our birthday it hurts. Just because I never really cared before because I had Ari no matter what, but now I don’t. It’s hard. So for every birthday I’m just letting it be about her. It’s not even about me, it’s about her. That will be my forever gift to her, that’s the least I can do. This post as well as every other post was very hard for me to write. This one in particular because of the memories of our past birthdays together. In every IG post, Facebook post I used to thank God for my sister and blessing me with her. Now all in the same sentence I have to thank God for her and thank him that I even had the opportunity to have met her. That’s hard. I won’t ever forget a birthday with you Ari. I hope all of you reading wish Ari a happy birthday, she would be so honored. Oh yea one more thing, remember to drink jager till’ you die!!!