L. O. V. E.

Have you ever had that kind of love that makes you race out the door that holds everyone else in just so you can be alone to text someone because you’re terrified the moment to tell them you love them to their core will pass before you type the last letter?

The kind of love that makes you wave just a little longer when they leave simply because you’re caught up thinking about how much of your heart they’re taking with you?

A love that makes you second guess every move you make because you want every move you make to enhance your other half’s life?

The love that leaves you breathless because you never thought it possible for your heart to attach so tightly to another?

It’s truly amazing how God shapes our hearts to love and be loved. So deeply. So tightly. So sweetly.

Every man

There was a man who yelled at his wife in the grocery check out line. And called her names for nothing. Very ugly names. 

There was a man who cussed out an older gentleman for not seeing him as the older gentleman backed out.

There was a man who looked at a young child tired of being in the buggy as if that child was the worst human on this earth.

BUT there was a man who brought me donuts, kisses my pouts, listens to my rants, eases my doubts, believes in us, leads, loves, supports, trusts, and so much more.

So for every man who doesn’t respect their significant other or others period, I become more and more thankful for my own man. My own hero. My own soulmate. He shows me everyday that there’s an opposite to those ugly, disrespectful, self-absorbed types. He shows me every day that he isn’t every man. However, he is my everything.

Over it…

I have this uncanny ability to analyze things until I can no more. Or until I give up. Or until someone is utterly exhausted of me asking questions, reasoning, and/or explaining.

I don’t know whether I was born with this quality or if I developed it. I can’t remember living without it. Though that doesn’t disqualify either option.

It comes as naturally as popping my knuckles. It just happens. I try to explain that. I try to tell them it’s just me. It’s just how I operate. I don’t know how to change it. And even if I could, I’m not sure I would for it has been a handy quality in many situations.

However, there are times I can’t say that I wouldn’t change it. If only because other people want it changed. I don’t live my life in the means of changing it to fit other’s view of what I should be. But my analytical nature isn’t welcomed by all. In fact, it’s welcomed by few. Being thus, I have a tendency to feel guilty when I’m accused of over-analyzing.

How exactly can one over think?

Literally, I can take a situation, break it down, reconstruct it, and determine the end result of it before it even happens. How is that a bad thing?

In some situations, I think it through and go through in a way that I know will bring a negative result but I know that I have to do it that way or xyz will happen and be worse than the negative result.

So I guess now that I’ve once again over analyzed analyzing, I’ll call it a night and go think about something else ;-)

Newlyweds.

Disclaimer: This is actually a post I wrote about a while ago. But it still holds true.

I have been stooped by many questions in my 22 years of living. But recently, one has come up and has utterly shocked me in the I-can’t-believe-you’d-ask that kind of way. But then I backed up and thought to myself, “Well, maybe they really are asking and don’t understand.”

We all know that my husband and I are newlyweds. But what you don’t know is that we actively made a choice to do as many things in our life together as possible. Together, we made the decision to work  as a team to complete tasks from yard work to cleaning toilets. 

But some do not find this to be the ideal. Some have chosen to judge this decision we made. Some have asked, “Why do you always have to be together?” And that’s worded nicely compared to their actual question.

The answer is rather simple. Because we choose to. Because for many nights, we are apart because of his job while they’re sitting cuddled with their spouse all night every night.  Because he works many weekends when I’m off and I work week days when he’s off. Because I love him. Because  he loves me. Because we’re married for crying out loud.

People have asked why he does house work when I’m there. Or why do I do yard work when he’s there. Am I above yard work? Am I too good, too dainty, too petite for yard work? Is he too big, too manly, too strong for house work?

Maybe, just maybe, if they’d do more together with their spouses, they would be happier people and wouldn’t make snide remarks about our time together. Maybe their marriage would actually feel like one instead of feeling like two people just existing in the same world.

It’s not as if it’s some huge secret of why we choose to live and work together. The Bible itself says I am given as his help mate. Who am I to argue? Am I just here to help in the way that society approves for me to help him? Or am I to help him in any and every way possible? I’ll take and gladly follow the latter.

With this new-age (or not so new) thinking, it seems like many couples are singles (sadly…that probably accounts for the extreme rise in divorce rates). Out for themselves and what they want and what they desire instead of what they as a couple and team want and desire. Besides God, my husband is my priority. I put him first in my heart and beyond him everyone and everything goes. And ya know what? That’s reciprocated from him. In his heart, I’m first and beyond me everything else goes. And we’re happy with that.

So just in case the questions really is earnestly asked, herein lies the answer.

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A Mail Box

Some things in life are perfectly reason-less to have. Some things are definitely must-haves.

And then there are things that fall in between.

Living in America forces citizens to have a mailing address. Thus necessitating a mail box or a P.O. Box. As a citizen who grew up having a mailbox at the end of her driveway that she could walk to each day, I merely assumed that I would have one of America’s greatest inventions (as I see it as such) as an adult.

Wrong. Unfortunately, where we live, my husband believes mailboxes are pointless investments as it’s been his experience that they only get knocked down.

Knowing this doesn’t change the fact that I want a mailbox. A P.O. Box has served us fine except for the aggravation of having to leave our property to go and retrieve any mail (and the further aggravation upon arriving at said box and not having ANY mail at all to get if nothing is in our box). But for all intents and purposes, the P.O. Box is fine. It just doesn’t cover all I want.

Even on the days I was sicker than sick, going to get the mail was a welcome reprieve short bit of exercise. It gave me a purpose. A reason to get up and at least get out for a little bit in the sunshine without requiring great amounts of energy. It was also a privilege of mine to go and get the mail. Almost as special as being allowed to drive, being allowed to get the mail was the next best thing.

I felt so alive. So grown up. So…purposeful. There I was. Setting out on the journey to what could be almost anything imaginable. Fake Disney tickets trying to bribe us to come there. Checks. Cards. Gifts. Pictures. Scholarships. At the end of my walk, anything could be waiting. Crisp Winter air. Crunching over pebbles slurping a Push-Up during the harsh heat of Summer. Fall with its leaves swirling around. I'd walk through it all to get to that dome-shaped box.

And yes, I realize (you haters of mailboxes) that “anything” now waits at the end of the drive. But it’s the idea. I have to drive. No exercise. Go into a public place with many germs. Hope to heavens I remembered my key, find our box, also  hope to heaven that I haven’t made the trip for nothing, etc. And then, if there’s bad news waiting in the box, I still have to make the drive home. Or on the other hand, if it’s the best news of my life, I can’t run back to our house as quickly as I can to share the news.

A P.O. Box is a chore. Not a privilege.

I know my husband’s right. We shouldn’t get a mailbox only to have it torn down. They’re expensive. And I’d be super upset if it were to be knocked down.

But it doesn’t mean I don’t want one perhaps only for the memories it brings, the exercise required, and the undeniable joy I get from walking to and from it each day.

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