It’s my 27th birthday and I’ll HARLEM SHAKE if I want to!

No but seriously, can someone remind me how this ended up happening??

For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been sneaking behind my girlfriend’s back. I’ve been lying constantly about where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. I even got her friends and family in on it.

But last Saturday, she finally found out what we’ve all been up to this entire time…

And she loved it. Like, tears-coming-down-her-face loved it (I don’t usually enjoy making girls cry, but I’ll make exceptions).

If you know T at all (her blog is seriously one of my favorites), then you know she’s the absolute PERFECT target for a Shit [Blank] Says video. This girl is full of such ridiculousness/awesomeness/weirdness, it’s almost too easy!

For a girl who doesn’t give a shit about fancy dinners and expensive gifts, we all knew that this would be the perfect birthday gift. And it totally was.

One thing I didn’t expect though, was how awesome making this video would be for me.

First of all, if you know me, you know I have a strained relationship with creativity. And especially with filmmaking.

Once I got the idea to do this video, I could feel my old creative impulses kicking in. I started to get stressed. I wanted this thing to be PERFECT! What if I fail?? What if it isn’t funny? Am I running out of time? I need to start planning! I need to start writing! I need to –

SHUT UP!

I took a deep breath. And then I kicked those old impulses to the curb. Remembering my new outlook on creativity, I made a promise to myself right there and then:

“For the entirety of making this video, you are NOT allowed to stress, get frustrated, or turn this into a burden. I command you to have FUN with it. This is not an option.”

It helped to remember the whole freakin’ point of this video: to make Taneen happy.

And if Taneen found out that I stressed about this video for 2 straight weeks, she would not be happy. She would slap the shit outta me.

So it’s really awesome for me to enjoy this finished video and know that I pulled it off without stressing or being a perfectionist. When it comes to videos, this is near IMPOSSIBLE for me.

Pretty sweet.

But I got something else out of it too. Something even cooler…

For 2 straight weeks, I got to hang out and spend one-on-one time with my girlfriend’s closest friends and family. The people she frickin’ loves the MOST in her life.

And I got to see firsthand how much they all love her back.

I got to have a cig break with her college roomie, who told me how special Taneen was to her. I watched her parents try to imitate her and crack up so hard we couldn’t continue filming. I sat around with her best law school buddies and just traded our favorite Taneen stories.

See, it’s funny. Going into this, I thought that the actual filming would be the most annoying part. That it was just another obstacle getting in the way of my end goal: having a finished video.

But it actually turns out that this “annoying” filming process – hanging out with her friends and fam, putting on shitty wigs, laughing our asses off – was what actually mattered all along.

It was a beautiful celebration of Taneen’s life in and of itself. And the fact that we got to make a finished video afterwards was just the cherry on top.

I think there’s a life lesson in here somewhere.

Either way, I finally got to create a video with minimal amounts of stress and a shit ton of fun, all while realizing that the journey was more important than the destination.

Not too shabby, eh?

Happy birthday baby. Thank YOU for that awesome gift.