HAPPY BIRTHDAY gildedage

[teaberryblue]

TODAY SHE IS AN OLD LADY.

Only not really because she still can't buy alcoholic beverages for her residents, but still.

<3 Happy Birthday. I hope 20 is awesome for you.

You guys, kids, the kids I've known for years now, this goes for gildedage especially because it's her birthday and that's what made me think of it, but it goes for so many of the rest of you, too, even the ones I don't speak to often. I am so proud of all of you and the incredible, mature, amazing individuals you are becoming. I've known some of you so long now that I knew you when you were angsty little kiddies going through puberty and dealing with all kinds of teen woes, and I've watched you all grow up online, through your words and thoughts and I've seen so many incredible sides of you. When I read about what people like kalliona and bluenessmmd and dragonmagelet are doing now, and I remember them being twelve and thirteen years old, I sometimes boggle at the intelligent, mature young ladies they've become. And there are people like ardorintoxicate and steep who I knew lifetimes ago, when we were all crazy kids in a chat room up all night, and I read your words now, and I think, wow. There are way too many of you to name you all. seori, leaflette, sorcerorsock, lifechild. atomicfiction & sewertalk, both of you have gone from precocious kids to inspired artists with a real style of your own and a sense of you that comes out in what you do. There are more of you I know I'm missing a shout out to (like the one I am having dinner with tomorrow), but if I didn't list your name, consider yourself included, because I am thinking about you, too, this is just getting long. And there are some of you I've only know for a year or two, too, or people I know who were older when I met you, and this goes just as much for you. It's absolutely incredible to watch every single one of you grow up. I just needed to say that because I have a feeling that it's not something you all hear every day.