So…Let's Hang Out

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ContactGina Marie2014-12-30T18:31:57-08:00

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soletshangout

One of us turned 10 years old today. Hint: It wasn One of us turned 10 years old today. Hint: It wasn’t me. 🥳  She is literal joy wearing fur. The best impulse purchase of my life.  My iPhone made an album called “best friends” and it’s pretty much exactly photos like this. Peter is not in them. He understood. I think that says a lot. We’re close. #emmaisabear
I know that this should be a mushy Valentine’s D I know that this should be a mushy Valentine’s Day post where I gush about the amazing @peykemans (he really deserves all the gushing—full stop). Maybe I’d talk about how even though he wanted to make our usual steak and lobster day traditional dinner, I asked if we could have leftover spaghetti because the most special thing to me is time with him. So, we ate spaghetti that we microwaved and then salad out of our dirty spaghetti bowls. But, it was the best because I got to hang out with my best friend of 18 years. I could gush and mush and make this all poetic… but, instead I’m just a girl standing in front of her bagel saying “Hey gurl, you want some bagel with those broccoli sprouts?” ☺️ #loveislove
SO, THIS IS 37. ✨♥️🍁 I am not graceful w SO, THIS IS 37. ✨♥️🍁  I am not graceful with birthdays. I am clunky and messy with feels. I cried on my 18th birthday because I did not want to be an adult. It felt weighty. Big. Heavy. And, while I was still, for all intents and purposes, a child who could now buy a lotto ticket—I wasn’t entirely wrong. The weight of adulthood can sometimes be crushing and heartbreaking and wild. It can also be freeing as we grow and change and shed the skins of childhood that didn’t serve us.  It’s cereal for dinner in your first apartment with a cat purring in your lap. It’s falling in love with a boy you met in your ex boyfriend’s shitty kitchen. It’s trying on careers like you’re trying to find the next pair of perfect jeans.  It’s trying to make it in a city without having to move home. It’s spending your last $20 on a bottle of tequila and drinking it with your love in the sticky Los Angeles summer heat—our mattress under our air conditioning unit that operated at a warm whisper. It’s saying you’ll never drink again as you lay on the linoleum floor the next day—head heavy looking up at the toilet. It’s road trips to canyons that could swallow you whole and inspire you with their beauty. It’s moving and realizing you have too much shit. It’s long conversations and laughing so hard you feel you might actually combust. It’s marrying the boy from the kitchen under an oak tree. It’s in sickness and in health. For richer or for poorer. Its therapy-so much glorious therapy. It’s letting your partner comfort you through life’s toughest moments—taking turns holding each other through choked sobs. Its dance parties and kisses and diving into deep blue icy enchanted lakes surrounded by mountains—feeling baptized by nature and possibilities. It’s tragedies and triumphs. It’s change and chaos and duality. Always duality. The impermanence of it all. It’s being woken up by the hot panting breath of your golden retriever as the heat hits your neck. It’s surviving a pandemic, and all that implies. It’s a whole lot of everything. So, here we are, far from 18, still figuring it out. Less tears, more gratitude and the audacity to hope for what could be. ♥️
Once upon a time I was an only child, then @safety Once upon a time I was an only child, then @safetymeetingmusic came along 30 fateful years ago, crashed the party,  and we’ve been a dynamic duo ever since. Real glad he did. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my baby brother. I adore you, Mikey! Now, Please enjoy this slice of the 90’s that was definitely taken at the mall. No one pulls off overalls like you, bruh. 😎♥️🎂
I had been waiting to hold you since November. Y I had been waiting to hold you since November.  You were born in crazy times, that you’ll someday read in your history books. Your mom and I would talk on FaceTime while she was in the hospital for weeks trying to keep you safe and growing strong for as long as possible. She is tough, your mama. That beautiful cousin of mine. I’m sure she will tell you the harrowing story of your arrival one day. That’s hers to tell. Everyone was so excited to meet you, but we worried that you’d come too early.  You were only two pounds when you arrived. Tubes and chicken legs with a VIP suite in the NICU. You fought. We watched. Your dad and mom tirelessly feeding you and visiting you, masks on. I just wanted to hug you all, but we couldn’t. Pictures and updates came regularly. I smiled with each picture of you breathing and fighting and eating. You came home for Christmas, like the best most perfect gift.  And, still it wasn’t safe for me to hold you or meet you. So, here we are, on the 4th of July, the year after your birth. You’re seven months old. Me holding you for the first time. Your chubby little arms clutching my soft ones. Feeling you nuzzle into me was everything. Smiling. Laughing at your big brother. Your favorite person. You are magic, dear one. The littlest cousin and the biggest dang miracle.  You were worth the wait, Tyler.🥰  📸: taken by your mama @hulahips136 . I was too overwhelmed getting to see you all, my ohana, that I didn’t snap any pics. ♥️
Brushed the cat. Gave her this mohawk with the ext Brushed the cat. Gave her this mohawk with the extra hair. One of us is more amused than the other. Any guesses? 🤣😎 #meowhawk
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Nutritionist, blogger, writer of bad puns, stories & recipes. I probably have chocolate in my bra, and a song in my heart. Winks at strangers when anxious.

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SoLetsHangOutGina Eykemans, NC@SoLetsHangOut·
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