Their First and Last Birthday

I squeezed my beautiful wife Freddie's hand; we were both dilated to an 8.

It was forever in the making: the birth of our children. We had a bright little room with a stunning mountain sunset painted on the walls. You could see every detail of the earth and every wavelength of colour from the sun. I loved how our children would be born in a room painted with such detail, delicacy, and awareness of the world's beauty. We were born in off-white rooms with cheap clocks on the wall back in my day. What does that represent? The bland, limited nature of our existence? I much prefer to represent the climb of life and natural artistry.

I have no idea how Freddie and I were giving birth at the same time. Apparently, it's really rare. No doctor in the hospital had ever heard of it. But then again, history isn't documented as precisely anymore, not since the blip: there are no quantifiable facts or time stamps.

Our doctor came in the room with a shining smile on her face. "The babies look great. Calla, you're at a 9, Freddie, you're almost at a 10. You'll both have these cuties by sundown."

As she was leaving, Freddie traced a heart with her fingers on my palm. My body warmed up. I felt baby kick a little. My heart sank; what a special, rare, day.

I suddenly shared a thought I didn't even know I was capable of having: "Fred, this is the first time in who-knows-how-long that I had a smidge of a wish that we still used clocks and calendars. It'd be nice to record this day."

"Oh Cal, we don't need an arbitrary system of precision to remember the beauty of this experience. Our children don't need the outdated celebration of a 'birthday.' We will love them and celebrate them every day." Freddie softly said elegantly. She had the most magnificent glimmer in her eye. Her wisdom lit the room.

"I am so passionately in love with you." I instinctively replied.

Sometime later, our twins Orlagh and Wilder came into this world. They'll stay for an unknowable but memorable time. I am sure of it.

We brought them home to our cozy forest bungalow, where they're entitled to unlimited hugs.

It's the biggest turning point in my life since meeting Freddie and since the blip. I couldn't help but spend some of this period bathing in memories during the blip.

These were memories that fostered more gratitude for our little, perfect life. The blip, easily, was the turning point for my happiness. It decoupled my agency from society's decisiveness. I wanted to document these reflections so that the kids could read them once they knew how to read.

So, on a windy night, I wrote the first story down in a bright teal notebook. I journaled with the pen I got at my wedding from my sibling (it's sparkly purple!) and on the hand-crafted carpet, Freddie made. I felt, most of all, in awe of the details around me.

I wrote.

Today: a day on Fred's soft carpet, with Alex's pen, writing for O & W, red velvet cookie disaster, windy night, W didn't poop yet!!! Beth called, and they gave me a few new yoga poses.

O and W,

The last day I remember is December 19th, 2028. The day of the blip. Oh shoot. You don't know what a day is. Ok. A day is the approximated time it takes for the earth to spin around! It was divided into smaller units called hours, and into smaller units called minutes, which went to smaller units called seconds (the length of a snap of the fingers). "December" and "19" were used the classify the "day," I promise I'll get better at explaining foreign concepts in these letters.

I lived in New York City; I worked on a street named after a wall (it's a bit confusing, but I worked in finance, and yes, it was incredibly boring).

On this "day," I sat in my apartment with a notebook much like this one in hand. I was writing my "New Year's Resolutions." A "year" was a measurement of time based on the earth's rotation around the sun. It was never exactly accurate, not all years were of equal length, but society back then needed that structuring. Likewise, people like me needed that structure. So, whenever a new year was around the corner, people set goals for themselves.

I was in the midst of scribbling "get rid of my depression" (depression is an extreme form of sadness, it's infrequent among people like us now) when I felt a flicker the intensity of a tsunami. Everything shuck for a moment. And suddenly, New York City went dark. So dark that you could see a full sky of stars.

I decided to go to bed early. When I woke up, everything was normal except all our clocks (methods to tell time by hours, minutes and seconds). All clocks stopped working. It was sudden. It was instantaneous. And people still don't know why it all happened.

But this timeless world lasted for a while. It lasted for so long we stopped counting the days.

Instead, we learned to make the days count.

You see, kids, I soon realized that time was one of many systems of society. I worked a job and lived a life enslaved to this system. But I was also slaved to other things, like my enslavement to my desire for wealth (born from my need to be successful) or my enslavement to heteronormativity because it was "traditional" and "easy." So I quit my job, moved to the woods, became myself, and fell in love with your mom. But the pursuit of all that freedom is a story for another night.

Goodnight my loves,

Momma Calla