Words for Wednesday: Choosing Him

I have never heard of The Chaos of Stars, I am not sure what kind of book it even is. But these words speak to me. The word chaos itself has always spoken to me, it was such a part of my life for so long. But then, the stillness came. The unmoving, calm of stillness that came in the form of a 5 ft 11 inch man. God knew I needed him. God knew that my lifetime, my wild soul, my wandering spirit needed him. It hasn't been easy; we were two kids (well more so me than him, I don't think he has every really been a kid) trying to navigate life as we morphed into adults while trying to also learn to work as a team. I won't lie, there were times when I asked myself "is this right? is this the place I am supposed to be?" But I know what those questions were, they were my own doubts of being able to make it through the tough stuff. I had always been one who liked to use the easy exit. When life gets tough I tend to revert into a world of my own, to fill my mind with outlandish fantasies in order to pull my head out of reality. I do what needs to get done to keep up the world around me, but inside I am somewhere else. And he is not much of a talker, not one to contemplate over crazy dreams. What he is is sturdy. He's the wall you lean your back against when you would otherwise just fall over. He is exactly the quiet peace I need. 

I am a fire. 

He is the fireplace containing my path of destruction. 

I am the waves, pulled by the unseen force of the moon to the shore. 

He is the shore, steady and unmoving,

Always catching me at my breaking point 

and letting me beat against him when the storms kick in. 

And so this marriage makes no hard and fast exits. It looks for no ramps off the interstate and even if it sees one in its peripheral vision, while driving through a bumpy patch, it keeps its eyes straight ahead. It heads toward the goal of a life long and well lived (God willing) until it can hold one weathered, wrinkled hand in another. It chooses to love life at its best and at it's worst, because that is exactly what marriage is. It is choosing someone not despite their faults, but because of them. It means choosing to love the messy counter tops because someone didn't put away their breakfast cereal (sorry Babe! I try). It means choosing to laugh when ones wife gets miffed that part of the salad ingredients are missing and so she storms out of the house to go get them rather than just eat the salad without them. It is the choice we make to try to be the best version of ourselves all the while knowing that when we fall short we will be loved anyway. He teaches me what choosing means. He teaches me that growing together as one, but also as individuals, can be a beautiful ride. He shows me that choosing to do even the most messy parts of life together is what this world is all about. For that I will always choose him. 

This quote, from Eclipse, hung on the wall at our wedding. 

Words for Wednesday: A Winged Soul Favorite RM Drake Quotes

Today's Words for Wednesday quotes are just some of my favorites (a very small portion really) from R.M. Drake. Though I know he has intended them about someone other than himself, there is something in them that speak to me on a personal level about my own soul. I have always been a head in the clouds, fly-away, dreamer. It is that part of my soul that will always be forever grateful that God chose a man like Babe to be my husband; a man that knew that part of my soul needed to stay wild and so he nurtures it, loves it and lets it fly, because he knows that is the way to keep it flying home...   

Words with Friends

Friends, the welcome to adulthood version!

So, after the first week back at school, and back to a realistic schedule, I came home and took to the couch where I then proceeded to not move. For the entirety of the afternoon. Did you know that the all 10 seasons of Friends are now on Netflix? Well, they are. I had planned to simply watch the final three episodes, which I did. I laughed, I clapped, I awwed!! I loved it as much now as I did in 2003 (yup, 2003!) And now I am well into the middle of season 1. So much for just a few episodes, right?

Watching Friends as an adult, you pick up on things you didn't as someone coming of age. You still watch the story, you watch it unfold for characters you fell in love with so many years ago, but somehow the words mean something different now. Or else you just hear parts you chose to ignore before.

5 Things I Reheard (with adult ears) while watching Friends

"Welcome to the real world. It sucks. You're gunna love it."
- Sure 'nuf! As a teen I know exactly what I heard "real world (ie adult world), you're gunna love it!" That whole it sucks part? Went in one ear and out the other. Adulthood was this glorious thing, that I was going to enter into, fully knowing myself, my place in the world and how it was all supposed to fit together. Adults sometimes forget to mention that to children, you know the fact that it doesn't all fit together right. Or did I just fail to hear them? Probably. But I do love it. It sucks. Somedays it sucks real bad. But then there are those days, or even those little moments that shine inside the really sucky days, that make me remember I love it. It's real, it can be real sucky, but I love it.

"When did it all get so complicated?" 
- Somewhere, at some point along the way it got way complicated. But that's ok. It's supposed to be complicated, if it wasn't we wouldn't be here, we would be in Heaven.

"What if we dont get magic beans? What if all we have is beans?"
- There are days where I feel like I have no beans. No beans anywhere. And then somedays? They feel like days full of copious amounts of magic beans. Days where I have beans to share with the world. "You get a magic bean! And you get a magic bean!"

"Do you have a plan? I don't even have a pl."
- I thought for sure I would have this amazingly, wonderful, glorious plan for my life by the time I hit the age of 25 tops and then by the time I hit 28 I would have it nicely tied up, with a beautiful bow sitting atop. Well, I have had many of those said plans. And then reality set in and God said, "that was really sweet, but that's not your life." And now here I am with a job I LOVE and a community of people I am blessed to have in my life. And yet, I would tell you that I just have a pl at this point. I am still trying to figure out what the rest of my life is going to look like when I "grow up" and that's ok. It's all a journey.

"I've got magic beans."
- The scene ends, the episode is winding down and the questions we all ponder as adults have been thrown around. "How do we find the magic in it all?" And the answer is, we really never have to find it. It is always there. It is in the little moments, it's in the friends we hold close to our hearts- you know, the ones that never leave you even especially when life starts to pour- it's in the small blessings that fill each day. We all have a pocket full of magic beans, we just simply have to see them for what they are.