To my "he"...

Some people call it a long-distance relationship. Lately I've found a few new names for it... Too Much Fun, Ridiculous, Difficult, and "wait, what?"

Both long distance and short distance (any distance really) are similar to culture shock. At the beginning there's a euphoria and honeymoon-ish cluster of emotions that bubble and burst.... and then real life hits and there's confusion, frustration, and one too many blank stares. When the he or she on the other end of the phone (or for short distance, the he or she sitting across the table from you at Starbucks), suddenly loses the glow that seemed to radiate from their ever perfect and presentable person. They lose their splendor and it becomes harder to love them. Loving all of a sudden becomes a choice, not an action motivated by shallow romance and euphoric feelings. And the most reality biting thought throughout all of this is that you, the one they call their other... YOU have lost your angelic glow and have been exposed as a flawed and maybe even selfish human being that is just as difficult (or maybe even more difficult) to love.

Yet choosing to love them, even when it is the last thing I want to do, is something I've decided is a lot more fun and much more beautiful. It's a little something that holds true with everyone we interact with, and yet here it is to a different and deeper degree than I've ever experienced it.

In the midst of finding myself "back from my honeymoon", I enjoy our time together still. Good conversations, honest thoughts, coffee shops, reading, movies, roadtripping, singing together, being still, taking pictures, and laughing. It's the simple things we do that i really love most.

To my he, thanks for looking past my selfishness and choosing to serve me through your actions and hope-filled words.

When Christmas Isn't Merry.

Today Texas was visited by a blanket of snow. My emotions that only tend to get stirred by the beauty of snow and ice are pouting because they find themselves dormant yet another year. I'm sitting in my usual coffee shop in California staring out at unwelcoming gray skies and ugly palm trees. Christmas break is over and I've missed winter by only a few days (I'm reading A Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis... and can't help but think if Narnians could read this they would be baffled that I'm wishing for snow). No matter the weather, I am more than grateful to be back in California and am ready to begin another season of "furthering my education".

This year Christmas was frustrating, mournful, blank, and sad. Far from Merry. I've heard this happens to everyone at some point...having a Christmas that lacks the "happy factor". Or a vacation that only seems to highten exhaustion rather than exstinguish it. I gave myself time specifically to write. I clickity-chipped my computer keys till my thoughts came no more and my fingers were tired; yet, I found myself distracted, irked that i couldn't remember how to semi-colons in a sentence anymore, and too frustrated with my cliche imagery to finish anything. One thing I know, writing is not a simple task.

But I sit here desiring to write because these words are important for someone to hear. Because they have had a Merriless Christmas before too. They've had a Christmas filled with good and bad. A Christmas filled with beautiful moments. A shattered Christmas.Agrateful Christmas. And Christmases filled with deep hope amidst gloomy circumstances.

And this year I've decided it was okay that it was just... Christmas.