to be treasured

Summer 2011

From the day we met, Josh has shown me what it means to be treasured.  He felt privileged to hold my hand, to kiss my cheek, to be my boyfriend.  

Sixteen years later, the same still holds true.  He still acts privileged to be sharing this life with me; raising our kids and being side by side through thick and through thin.  

He's not the only one who feels lucky.  I feel lucky.  Beyond lucky, I feel blessed.  

***

But all this love, of course, means that missing him this year, living without him, has felt, quite frankly, unbearable.  

source

I don't like the days without him.  And so I'm praying the 33 days until his return pass quickly.  I want to hug this man who has now spent HALF OF HIS LIFE with me!!!

(And also, selfishly, I want his help with the kids, 

who currently have the flu and have, 

I believe, given it to me... 

Lord help us all!)

My First Sons

"Maybe I

was born

with you

inside me.

Maybe I

have always

carried you

with me.

Maybe you

are all

the wild

in me."

-Tyler Knott Gregson

Chasers of the Light

It started on Pinterest.  I saw one, then two, then three quotes by Tyler Knott Gregson, and that was all it took. I was hooked.  A lot of his poetry is about love, which I adore... But what I like even more are his poems about life.

Chasers of the light is a collection of his poems, typed old-school on a typewriter he picked up at an antique shop in Montana.  I read the book, cover to cover, in a matter of days, and nearly every page was magic.

A few favorites:

"Find the positivity.  Find the grace.  Find it and hold it and cling to it like it is your lifeline and only breath of air before everything sinks.  Find the silver linings.  Hold them in your lungs and search for them in the bubbles and rubble of all that pours down around you.  Find the bright spot in the dark clouds, listen for the sounds of the birds when the winds pick up and tear down the house around you.  It is there, shhhh, it is there, it is always there and it is waiting for you to reach out with both hands, bloody and shaking, and hold tight to it like it is the last thing you will ever learn how to let go.  Find the glory, the glory through the ache, and understand that it is what we can endure that defines who we become.  That it has never been about the punches we can throw, but the punches we can absorb and still stand up from.  It is the standing up, it has always been the standing up and the refusal to lie still and quiet as the numbers count towards ten and the knockout becomes complete.

Rise my soul, rise through the flame and ash, rise through the waters that fill the spaces under your arms as they crawl toward your throat.  Rise and find the grace, for it is all around you.

Find it. Find the grace."

*

"Be gentle,

always delicate

with every soul

you meet,

for every single morning

you wake up,

there is someone

Wishing,

silently

and secretly,

that they

had not."

*

"We are all 

looking

for the right

reasons

to want to

get out of 

bed

each and

every

bitter cold

morning."

*

"Look up more than down.

See more than say.

Listen more than speak.

Hope more than dread.

Believe more than criticize.

Yes more than no.

No more than maybe.

Laugh more than cry.

Love more than hate.

See. More. See."

So now you see.  You must buy it.

Really.