…birthday week, more like. My actual birthday is on Friday. I wasn’t going to post this week but then I had two conversations over the past couple of weeks that made me give pause.

A friend asked me what I was doing to celebrate finishing the most recent draft of my book, and I told her I bought a nightlight. A ridiculously expensive and cute nightlight, but a nightlight nonetheless. She said that wasn’t good enough and that she wanted me to think bigger. She recommended a few things, one of which was a shiny bauble (to which I of course asked, “Doesn’t the nightlight count as a bauble?”). The point is, throughout the course of that conversation I realized I had many things to celebrate and not just the one thing.

(birthday! teacher of the year award nomination! completed novel draft! end of semester! seven years of no new debt! essay published in 88 Unashamed Black Mental Health Stories!).

The other conversation happened with my therapist. It was unrelated to the topic of celebration, but she said that I tend to underestimate my emotional responses to things (which…shocker /s). And I remember before that I was recounting some things I had done, and she was like, “That’s a big deal. Those are big deals. You should be proud.” And I was like, “Sure, whatever” as one does. She didn’t yell at me, but she did the therapist equivalent by re-emphasizing that they were big deals.

So as I was realizing the many things I had to celebrate, I also realized that I was treating them as matter-of-fact things that happened without acknowledging that they are all big deals. (BIG deals! BIG deals! BIG DEALS!) (If you type something enough times, you stop saying it sarcastically in your head. This is a proven fact.)

To make up for my not enough of a shiny bauble nightlight, I decided to splurge and get a spa treatment, which was fine but not as spa-y as I was expecting. (This is what happens when you depend on the movies and TV for your information about life. I got a mud wrap and expected to be wrapped like a mummy. I was, instead, wrapped like a soft shell taco. It was relaxing, but I was really looking forward to the whole mummy thing. But if the massage therapist had added a weighted blanket, I would have accepted that. Because, man, a weighted blanket would have changed the game.)

My daughter also wanted me to make a wishlist for my birthday she can share with my friends. As I said in my post last week, she surprised me with a Disney Cruise and told me that the only thing I should be asking for is money on my cruise account. She tried to set it up for me but when she did a test run with one of my friends, it looked like a scam, so she gave up on that and asked me to post it myself because I could do it in such a way that people would know it was coming from me.

As I’ve been prepping for the cruise, though, I realized I want three things and not just the one.

1. Money added to my cruise account
2. Gift card(s) to Etsy
3. For people to buy a copy of the book my essay is featured in

Obvious reason is obvious for the book. The money to cruise account thing is pretty straightforward as well. I want to do three specialty dining events, buy a MagicBand, and, you know, souvenirs in general. It’s Disney. I know I’m going to want stuff.

But the Etsy thing of it is…Okay, what I didn’t know about Disney Cruises (except that it’s a Disney! Cruise! and I have wanted to go on one since I first learned about them in 2004–unless you count how I wanted to go on a cruise + Disney World trip because of The Baby-Sitters Club, #iykyk) is that there is a whole culture around them. This honestly shouldn’t be so surprising because (a) Disney and (b) Disney, but somehow it never occurred to me.

Not only is there the cruise itself along with embarkation day that requires family/group t-shirts (my daughter said we don’t need t-shirts to go on the cruise, and I was like, “oh you sweet summer child”), there’s pirate night that everybody dresses up for, and then, THEN, there’s DOOR DECORATING. (There are also some gift-giving exchanges that I don’t have the bandwidth to find out more about/participate in, but that’s not what’s important here.)

DOOR DECORATING.

So now, not only do I need an embarkation day t-shirt and a pirate outfit, I also need MAGNETS to DECORATE OUR DOOR. Are you kidding me? I have fallen down a deep, dark Etsy rabbit hole that I am still not sure how to climb out of. There’s options for magnets that says it’s our first cruise, it’s a mother-daughter cruise, it’s a birthday cruise. There are magnets to rep your favorite characters. Magnets for your name. Magnets, magnets, magnets.

And then you go down that hole and find MORE t-shirts and MORE things people bring on their cruises–like something for the characters to sign. Or refillable thermoses. Or a combo platter of a refillable thermos for the characters to sign. Or a personalized door magnet for the characters to sign.

Also, somehow I completely blocked out that there would be character experiences? I mean, I know it’s Disney on a ship but somehow it never occurred to me that I might meet Cinderella. Does that mean I need a CINDERELLA SHIRT?

And how am I supposed to pick between a pirate dress and a badass pirate t-shirt?

AND WHY DO ALL OF THESE THINGS COST MONEY?

And also I can’t spend all my money BEFORE I go on the cruise. I’m going to want to buy so many things once I’m on board!

So, yeah, I need Etsy gift cards, too.

(Seriously, the Etsy thing is such a problem that I had to start setting a timer when I get on there. Also, you do not want to know how many creators I have emailed to ask about customizations.)

Right, so those are the three things I want to celebrate both my birthday and all of those other things I did.

Since my daughter asked me to post asking for my friends to give me the cruise stuff, I’m going to do screenshots below to show how to do it. If you’re not interested in that, this is the end of my post and thank you for reading my (possibly) (definitely) unhinged Etsy shopping update.

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To add money to my cruise account:

Step 1: Click on my personal link. When you click on the link, there will be a pop up that says “Send NAILAH D a Sail Away gift.”

Step 2: On the pop up, click “Purchase Onboard Credit.”

Step 3: Once you click purchase onboard credit, a page will come up that says “Onboard Credit” with a place to enter the amount (“Amount”) you want to give as well as the name of the person you want to give it to. Under “Amount,” enter the amount you want to give.

Step 4: Under “Send Credit To,” enter my first name (Akilah) in the first box and my last name (Brown) in the second.

Step 5: Click “Link Guest” to complete your order and the credit will go to me!

And that’s it. Have a great rest of your week, everyone!