Unfiltered Joy
I can’t help but cry during flashmobs…consider it one of my most embarrassing weaknesses. But if you don’t at least catch your breath at this one, I’ll consider you a robot.
Lucky Number Seven
Seven years ago today I got married. I was happy, giddy and in love. I was also terrified.
Marriage can be a scary thing…telling someone that you promise to be there for them FOREVER and ever is a bit daunting. I look at the person I was seven years ago and I’m amazed that Trent got down on one knee (in a suit of armor, no less) and asked me to be with him the rest of our lives.
The day we were married, we were facing a whole new world ahead of us. There would be no honeymoon period, no newlywed years spent traveling and reveling in married bliss, as our friends were planning for themselves. Our future seemed very serious, and quite frankly, pretty damn scary. There was a baby on the way and a business being built, and we were just kids! It was overwhelming, and combined with the hormones, I can’t believe I didn’t go off the deep end.
But I didn’t. We didn’t. And even though it was hard some of the time, we moved forward together. There were slammed doors and storming out in to the night and screaming at the top of our lungs….and then, one day, there wasn’t.
I don’t know when it happened. But one day, it seems, we just grew up. We have grown into ourselves and into this marriage until it became the perfect fit. I don’t mean, of course, that our marriage is perfect. Not even close…but who wants perfect, anyway? When I say a perfect fit, I mean that we have reached a place in our relationship where it just fits. It’s comfortable, warm, loving and, dare I say, really freaking happy.
Our wedding song was Ben Harper’s “Forever,” and when I listen to it today, I’m awed by how perfect it is for Trent and I.
Not talkin’ ’bout a year
No not three or four
I don’t want that kind of forever
In my life anymore
Forever always seems
to be around when it begins
but forever never seems
to be around when it ends
So give me your forever
Please your forever
Not a day less will do
From you
I am so proud of this life we’ve built together. So proud of us. We figured it out. Seven years later, I look at that girl on her wedding day and want to give her a hug. “It’s going to be alright,” I’d tell her “In fact, it’s going to be the best thing you ever did.”
Click here to read our interview on marriage over at So Wonderful, So Marvelous. Click here to see Trent looking super dashing in a suit of armor.
Bottom photo by Nicole Coleman
Abre Los Ojos, Open Your Eyes
Life is a funny thing. One day you’re here and you’re laughing with your kids and the next day you’re not. (Bear with me, ya’ll, this post is basically just a long, rambling, run on sentence.)
Yesterday was Trent’s grandfather’s funeral, a celebration of a man I’ve known for over ten years, but really didn’t know at all. By the time I met Grandpa Ron, he was already in the early stages of what would become severe Alzheimer’s, and he usually thought I was his old secretary (also named Megan). He was a bit silly, but always fairly happy and ready to give me hugs. He danced with me at my wedding, smiling broadly the whole time. I found out yesterday that my wedding was one of the last times he’d danced. After that his body and mind slowly slipped away. Lucy was looking at old photos yesterday and saw one of Ron with his grandkids, laughing and smiling. “Is that when Grandpa Ron could hear and talk?” she asked. She never really knew him either. All her memories of him will be in a bed or a wheelchair, a faraway look in his eyes, if they were opened at all.
But yesterday I learned so much about the man he was before. How he snuck off to join the Navy at 16 so he could fight in WWII. How he created a beautiful blended family with ten kids that he loved so much. How he loved Las Vegas (and showgirls in particular). How he and his wife traveled all over and particularly loved going by boat. It was a beautiful, wonderful, sad day.
I looked around as the procession led into the church. The whole family was to walk in together. And wow, was it a procession. The family alone took up half of the church. Ron had built a big, beautiful family. Not always perfect and certainly not without disagreements, but full of love.
This year has been a strange one for me. Sometimes happy and full of hope, and sometimes really dark and depressing. I have drug myself from pretty sad places, and changed my life in ways I didn’t imagine I would last January. I never thought this would be a year of great change…but regardless, it has been. I look back at journal entries from a year ago and don’t recognize that person, she who was so angry, so full of self-doubt. The changes have been so great and purposeful, I feel renewed. I look around at Grandpa Ron’s big beautiful family and I think, “I will have that.” I will have a life full of love and joy and family.
I already have that.
The difference is, I see it now. I have removed the glasses of shame and guilt, and for now, in this moment, I see what I have. I am thankful for it, I know I am lucky.
Ironically, yesterday was also the last day of my Cultivating Courage class. This class couldn’t have come during a more perfect time. I needed a push to be brave, to stand up for myself and to remove the people and things in my life that had been causing me to see things through a veil of shame and sadness. I was probably already halfway there, but this class gave me some gentle nudges to complete my journey. One brave move, every day, for 30 days? Done. I highly recommend it.
I want to keep being brave. I want to walk into this next year, and the years to follow, with courage. The courage to be a person that makes the world a better place, through family, service and love. I want to be a person who encourages joy in the world, and helps it to spread.
I want to create a life, so that one day, when my family is celebrating who I was, they will know the world was better because I was in it. I want them to tell stories and laugh loudly. I want them to feel like I did yesterday. Peaceful, happy, grateful and loved.
Fall 2012 Playlist
It’s a grey, chilly day around here, so I figured it’s the perfect time to share my newest playlist. Here are some of the songs that are in my headphones this fall, some old and some new. Let’s jam and stay warm together.
USA! USA! USA!
When I was 13 years old, my sister surprised me with tickets to see the USA gold medal champion gymnastics team during their victory tour. It was one of those experiences I’ve never forgotten. I can’t really remember the routines or the music, but I can’t forget how it felt to be there with my big sister and how special I felt. And at 13, I was going through the WORST of my awkward years (which lasted, um, about a decade), so feeling special was pretty rare.
When we found out the 2012 gold medalists were going to be coming through Kansas City on their post-Olympics nationwide tour, my sister and I knew we had to be there! We immediately made plans to go and take our little girls.
We ended up taking one of Lulu’s best friends, who is also a gymnastics nut, since my cute niece ended up having a scheduling conflict (sad face!), but we still had an amazing time. It was so fun taking two six-year-old girls to see their heroes. They laughed and screamed and had a total ball. And I must say, the show was stepped up about 12 notches from the one I saw in 1996. There were acrobats and trampolinists and lots of gold medal winning gymnasts hanging from the ceiling. It was like a Cirque Du Soliel show!
Reliving childhood joy with my girl? Check!
(All photos obviously with the iPhone since they wouldn’t allow fancy pants cameras in the arena.)
