A REASON, A SEASON OR A LIFETIME

The time has come that I have dreaded for over 3 years now.  My parents home is officially up for sale.  Lately I have met myself with all sorts of emotions about things in life.  The reality of certain people, places and things only being in our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime.  Sometimes these things are easy to let go of, and sometimes they feel so hard to let go of that it might take a lifetime, or two or three, to move on from them.  Even when you know in your heart that closing that door will be the best thing for you to truly move on in life.  I'm finding in some areas of life, those doors may just be too damn heavy for me to close all the way, and that I have to learn to dance with life when the light fades through the cracks and I'm faced with only my heart thoughts in the darkness.  Dancing in the dark can be thrilling, but it can also be messy.  You can stumble over things you didn't know were there, fall and scrape your knees, sometimes knock yourself out unconscious if you fall just right. 

These messy parts though, I don't entirely mind the discomfort that they bring.  They are full of life.  Maybe not the I'm-so-happy-I-just-want-to-sing-while-I-sweep-the-floors kind of life, but there is a tale of life within them.  Life is both that lucky ol' sun who gets to roll around heaven all day, and also the shadows that blanket the earth, revealing the parts of our hearts that go unseen by the light of the moon.

This is me, standing in witness of my need to dance in the dark right now. 

SEVEN YEARS

On the Autumn Equinox, James and I celebrated 7 years of marriage together.  This photo above is actually from the day after when we went to have dinner with our families together.  It's kind of funny b/c James JUST got his own Dylan tee!  It only took about 6 months, ha ha! 

The day started out a bit rough.  By the time I was ready to go and took this photo above I was a bit ready to go back to bed and start the day over.  When we woke up my computer was on the verge of crashing b/c it is too full.  I have tons of photos on my computer, as well as the magazine Ive been working so hard on, that we did not want to lose, so we spent the first part of the day backing everything up on an external hard drive, and then again on Carbonite.  We also had tons of shirts that needed to go out for Skyline Fever.  We tried all month to get caught up to the point were we could take a good few days off for our anniversary, but life just kept happening and pulling us in other directions that were immediate necessities and we couldn't.  So by the time we were done with my computer and shirts, half the day was gone and we were both frazzled.  On top of that I was having one of those moments where nothing I put on felt good, so I changed about 10 times, which rarely happens anymore..

We had planned to spend the whole day in Wimberely, cruising around neighborhoods, scoping out homes for sale, visiting the locals shops and going to the water hole and a restaurant.  We did cruise some neighborhoods first and that was fun.  There is some truly amazing properties and land out that way.  When we got into town many places were closed, so we searched for a restaurant that was open and found that Linda's was open, which is a place I had wanted to go to before on my vacation there b/c it's my mama's name!  The food was excellent and they had the prettiest red door on the front of the little old house.  It had hard wood floors and mixed matched old vintage wooden tables and chairs.  My mom would of loved it.  We were at an off time of day in between shifts so we were almost the only ones there which was nice.  I had their signature salad, broccoli salad, tomato basil soup and a deviled egg.  James had their smoked brisket quesadillas.  Yum!  After that we tried out their local coffee shop.  I honestly wasn't expecting much from the looks of it but it was surprisingly really good coffee!  Then we drove the back country way home and enjoyed the views over the Devil's Backbone hills outside of Wimberely.  So so beautiful.

Before bed we played Scrabble and James was so confident he was going to win... But I still hold the throne in our house for scrabble champion!  I kicked his ass!!!!!!  He even had Bella helping him!

Event though our anniversary was not all smiles and sunshine like we had hoped, we were able to laugh about it and go with the flow.  It's hard to let go of expectations sometimes, especially when its on a 'special' day, but it helped us so much to just let go and just be.  

I feel lucky to have a guy who gets in there and gets things done even when it's not what he wants to be doing.  He spent the morning doing everything he could to save my computer.  Then that evening and all the next morning he spent hours researching and buying me a new computer tower.  He is always putting me first, and that's a good feeling. 

PIECES OF HOME

WHEN LIFE MIRRORS LIFE

A couple of days ago we found the source of gnats in our house.  We couldn't seem to get rid of them no matter how clean we kept the house, kitchen and trash.  Then James noticed they were in my plants.  A few of them had become infested with them.  Most likely because I was not taking care of them properly.  I really have no clue what I'm doing when it comes to plants, its all just trial and error, and I have epically failed many times in my past. 

I found myself uprooting several of my plants and starting them anew with clean pots and fresh soil.  I realized in the moment that this was a perfect mirror for how I felt inside.  Working deeply with my roots in my personal soul work.  Seeing where things need to be dug up, things that have been infested with bad habits, complacency of daily life when things really should be worked on to reach a deeper, and more life bearing place.  Seeing where I need to sprinkle fresh soil so that my roots are not soaking up the larva infested ways any longer.  Looking upon what needs to be more routinely maintained with love and nurturing so that it does not get to this infested place again. 

Funny how a simple act of re-potting a plant can spur this kind of inner dialogue within myself.  Often it is in these mundane moments that life brings me the messenger.  I'm just glad I was in a state of awareness when the message was passed along.