This post was originally written on 12/23/17 for subscribers of the daily taryn, a daily email newsletter/writing project . Now's the perfect time to join, so I'll hold while you do so by clicking this. Love u.
Maura, my coworker-turned-friend, asks:
If you could spend 1 hour with 1 celebrity, who would it be?
Awesome question, and one that I’d normally have a heyday battling myself over — Justin Bieber, because I have a million questions to ask. Ellen Degeneres, because I want her advice. John Mayer, because wow, what a life.
I would normally spend hours on this question, but tonight, when I read it, my response was simple. If I could choose to spend an hour with anyone, celebrity or not, it would be my parents. They are celebrities to me.
I’ll be honest. I am terrified to lose them someday. I have a ball in my throat as I write this. Everyday they get older, I panic. Every time they get sick, their bodies hurt, they cough, I get nervous. Last night, we were googling the average life expectancy in the US. It’s 78. If they are “average,” I have about 20 years left to spend as much time with them as I can.
And I do. I am religious about time spent with them. I love traveling with them, playing games with them, watching movies with them, doing nothing with them. I am so acutely aware that, even if we don’t see it, the days are always numbered. It is my greatest fear to say “see you later” someday. I quite honestly don’t know who I will be when that day comes, and while I hope to have decades of full, amazing, colorful years with them ahead, I will still take any extra hour I can get.
That’s why I’d pick them over anyone, even just for 60 minutes.
Oh, and if you don’t believe in fate, check out the pjs my mom just walked in wearing, right as I wrote this post:
Also, a shirtless guy is on TV and my dad just said, “Deena, you don’t have to look…” They cute. Very cute.
See you tomorrow,
Taryn