What makes you stay....

On days when your head cannot make sense of the truth. When you're unsure and the words don't come out right. When you try and fail and try and fail and it seems like a big circle of the same old, same old.  When you are literally looking at your people wondering how in the world they are still here, and you wonder what makes them stay when everything is probably telling them to throw in the towel because you're too much of a train wreck. 

You read the list of tweets that you've written about the people you love the most over that last year. You re-read old blogs about your best girl going to Africa and how much you loved and laughed and existed before things got different. And how you struggled to make sense of things in the hard seasons, and how even when things were total shit, the characters and the goodness won. love won and will continue to win. And you're just kind of in awe of all of it. 

And those dusty, sweet memories somehow becomes louder than the lies because you remember what that love felt like and how you can still feel it, when you're not being a terrible human. 

Last year all i wanted to do was sit at the kitchen table and talk about life and dream big dreams and eat really, really great food and laugh and cry until it was late the breeze through the kitchen window smelled sweet and the light in the kitchen flooded everyone in their most beautiful glow.

This year is less kitchen table and more...office chats, and living room times, and doorway conversations and more hugs and outdoor chores and projects in the rain and coffee dates and awkward side hugs when you're weeping. and Saturday morning coffees. Different but still beautiful.

It's still all i want to do. i want to look at old photos and hear stories and read old yearbooks and plan anniversary parties and these people so much that it makes me weepy. instead of being scared. Instead of trying to push them away. 

I want to plan epic birthday weeks and birthday parties and i want to let go of all the fear and cross the scary bridges when and if they come. 

What do you say in moments like this? You just let your heart lead the way. 

i'm gonna go watch Meet the Robinsons with Nick because he's the best. :)