Joie de Vivre: Love Is All You Need (A Gift When Given)

It's been a few days since I've written and that's okay with me. I got caught up in life which is the whole purpose of it, right? Nothing too tremendous has happen since I last spoke but I can tell you that I'm trying really hard to avoid certain things. For instance, when I get home late from a long day of work, I'm trying hard not to just sit on the couch, watch TV, fall into technology and forget about what is truly important. I only have so many months left before that becomes my reality but with ice outside (not excited about that).

So today I am going to talk about Love. The cheesy but incredibly real yet unexplainable word & feeling.

I've been loved my whole life and I'm not saying that to brag or anything but I truly have been. I was raised in a household where the love in the room lit the fire that warmed the house. And that's to say the least. Now, growing up there were off days where I didn't feel so loved but I think those hard ones were the ones that made me realize the important people & things in my life.

My parents loved each other and still do, very much so. In fact, my in-laws are the same. Lucas and I are very lucky to have two sets of parents that are still together and in love. That is rare and a gift.

I was sent to school everyday with a lunch bag or lunch money and regardless of which I always seemed to have a note from my mother. Now THAT my friends is bragging. Everyday until I graduated high school I received a love lunch note in my lunch from my mother. How many people can say that? Some people would think I'm weird and say, "Really? Until you were 18 years old? Isn't that a little too old?" I answer you with this: Absolutely not! To show your child that you love them in the smallest way possible everyday for their entire life and have it as written proof is a gift. And I hope my mother knows that because I will carry that on into my days of being a mother. She's taught me a lot about being one and a good one at that. Again, that is a true gift. I knew my friends were jealous and they should have been. But what they didn't realize is that if they asked, "well what about me?!", they would have gotten one from my mother as well. In fact, my best friend said those exact words and from then on I had two love lunch notes in my lunch, one for me and one for her.

I think it could be hard to spread your love so thin when you have such a gigantic heart. I used to say to Lucas, "My heart is so big it hurts." He made fun of me for it but he is part of the reason. It's all his fault and I'm leaving it at that.

So regardless if you grew up being loved or not, everyone deserves to find love in something sometime in their life. I was lucky enough to find it at home, in my career, in my pets, in my friends, in all the little strange things I find beautiful and of course, the man I married. He's going to be a great father one day and I like to think I will be a great mother. Our house will be full of love and hopefully that fire will light and warm our house as well.

Love is precious. Cherish, nurture and love love. For some people, it is hard to come by.

I'm leaving you with photos of our special day because to this date I can honestly say I have never been so incredibly happy and excited about something. So excited that I didn't even understand the word stress or anxiety or fear (that specific day). I got up that day from not sleeping (excitedness to the max) and from that moment did not stop smiling. I don't remember anything going wrong either. Now that I think about it the only thing I can think of was my typewriter running out of ink while people were signing the guest book. I remember walking over to it, looking at it for a second and saying, "Throw a pen on the table with the paper, let's go dance!" I honestly didn't care about it. All those small things I obsessed about for two years. Don't get me wrong, I am so glad I did. It was amazing and beautiful. But when it comes down to it, on that day, I couldn't care at all. I had my friends and family there, the sun was out, the music was playing and I had just become a married woman to an amazing man, typewriter ink sounded so trivial.

So instead, I danced. And that is what I'm telling you to do.... dance. Forget about it all and just dance.