You are cordially invited to…

Hannah Katy’s Pity Party

Where: Thursday, March 11

When: 8p.m.-??

Regrets Only

In lieu of gifts please bring pitiful stories to share so we can all drown in our sorrows and in pints of Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream.

Could you imagine if this were real? If we legitimately threw our own pity parties whenever life handed us a bad deal of cards for the day… I picture us sitting around a table like that of Alice and Wonderland and the grand tea party. All of us crying into our party dresses (Stephen K in a stunning tux), shoveling cake into our mouths as we jut our forks into the chocolate layers, as if to stab our own troubles. The pinata would be the real kicker…  I would request that we all bring our own baseball bats since clearly we won’t want to wait our turn. A massive brawl would erupt as we all beat the pulp out of the poor paper mache pinata shaped like a sunshine.

It’s a good thing we don’t actually celebrate these occasions. There would simply be too many parties to attend. Our calendars would be full. We would need to quit our day jobs in order to attend all of these pity parties. And just think of the toll this kind of party would take on our moods… Yikes.

But why… if we are so ready to throw up the streamers when our life seems pretty,for lack of a better word: woof, do we often forget to celebrate life? We can pin point in a second the things in our lives that need work or changing. We can rattle off a laundry list of reasons why life isn’t as good as it should be. But we have it, we have life. We are holding the precious gift in our hands right now. Shouldn’t that be the ace in the deck? The rock to the scissor? The scissor to the paper?

Life is beautiful and yet we forget our party hats. Life is remarkable but often we only think about the parade when it’s rained on.

A thousand and one moments transpire in a day, a million unexplainable encounters, a few dozen smiles, and words and actions that fill us up like a basin overflowing. And shame on us for forgetting to celebrate.

We meet new people. We learn new things. We are filled with love. We travel to new places. We encounter mystery. We cry, yes, but the bright side to that: we feel. We take chances. We straddle the line. We put ourselves first. We hold others up. We live. Passionately. Freely. Wildly. Spiritually. Spontaneously. We live.

We have this very moment.. yes, this very one. So what if the last one wasn’t so good. It is over now. Let’s throw a big surprise party for this very moment, put on our best party clothes, grab a drink and let’s rumble.

And I apologize if I seem like an awful hostess for not greeting you at the door. You can find me on the dance floor, leading the Macarena with a piece of chocolate cake in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other. Cheers!