I bought this bottle in 2015.

Actually, this one was bought by a friend after an identical bottle I bought on our wine tour met its untimely death on the asphalt surface of an apartment complex garage, glass shattering and its expensive contents spilling across the painted lines like a crime scene.

But it was replaced within a day, as birthday wine tends to be.

I thought to myself, I will drink this wine when something amazing happens. When a dream comes true. When I want to celebrate a milestone worthy of it.

Well, friends, since 2015, I have:

Hit the USA Today bestseller list six times.Had seven books named as Kindle All Stars.Signed with a literary agent after 20 years of trying.Sold three books to traditional publishers.Had all three contracts earn out in royalties over and above their advances.Gained a new child through adoption.Had countless anniversaries with the love of my life.

But I did not drink the wine.

What the actual hell?

What am I saving it for?

There is an idea, a cultural irregularity, that somehow, unless we’re striving for more, more, MORE, we’re not succeeding.

If the event isn’t big enough, momentous enough, life-changing enough, it’s simply…not enough.

Today, I called bullshit.

We drank the wine.

Why?

We’re here. We’re getting through this horror show.

I finished another book. My seventy-something-ish one. A hard one. One that could ostensibly change the entire trajectory of my career.

Or maybe it won’t see the light of day.

It doesn’t matter. We drank the wine.

We celebrated being alive (because since I bought this bottle, many friends and family are no longer, in fact, with us. So many. SO many.)

And the wine was good. Let me tell you, it was so so so so good.

I should have drunk it yesterday, and the yesterday before that, and every yesterday and every day and every time I felt worthy of this wine.

Which should have been every minute.

So get out the pretty dress with the tag on it. So what if it’s tight, or gaps a little, or you are “waiting” for the right occasion.

The occasion is now.

Put it on.

Eat the cake.

Use the last of the good stuff, whatever that is.

And drink the damn wine.