I'm laying here in bed next to john after a whirlwind of a day. A day filled with the excitement of planning our future travels and adventures but also filled with body aches and queasy stomachs.
And now here it is, 4:13am, and I'm laying here with my "just in case" puke bowl sitting next to me after yet another week of sickness and my arsenal full of water bottles tissues and medicine. And sleeping pills....
Part of me wishes I would have taken those sleeping pills tonight so that this insomnia would go away and I could finally get the rest that I have been crying for, for weeks, but the other part of me is clinging to what is REALLY keeping me awake.
What usually keeps me up are my fears or concerns, my hopes and dreams, my to-do lists.
But tonight it's different
Tonight what is keeping me up are the thoughts of all of my many blessings. My family. And it's beautiful. I don't want a pill to cut that short. Not tonight.
I lay here next to the most honorable man I've ever known. The most honest and caring, fair and selfless, giving and forgiving man.
He has been my rock through tough times, my sounding board when I needed one, my biggest cheerleader, and my vault who I can tell all my opinions, hopes and dreams, fears and concerns, regrets and mistakes to...no matter how different they are from his.....and never question his love, loyalty or compassion.
I am so thankful for a man who puts the best interest of our family constantly in front of the things that are easiest, more fun, or make him most comfortable - for the sake of my comfort.
I lay here at 4:13am and marvel at the fact that I am the mother to the smartest, cutest, silliest, most fun filled little ball of cuddly joy I could have ever dreamed of. Who seems to know when I'm sick, or feeling a bit sad and can turn it all around with just a crooked little smile and a random open mouth kiss on my lips. At just the right moment.
I am thankful for a Gospel that is life changing - and although I don't always understand it, I am thankful for the peace and comfort it brings to me. I still struggle, but I know that pain and struggles are Devine blessings, however difficult they may seem at the time.
I have irrational fears and crippling "disorders" that keep me depressed and lonely most of the time....But even with all of the sadness and loneliness that those can sometimes bring and with how difficult they can be to shoo away, I am so eternally grateful for them. For my husband. For my daughter. For the family I grew up in that I once thought was forever broken, and only recently realized is alive and well and although mostly dysfunctional (ha) I wouldn't trade for the world.
I have two amazing brothers who have both gone above and beyond what they even realize, to help me feel loved and cared for, to help me to not feel so alone.
I am so grateful for Marshall - who, when i was a young girl, I always wished would let me hang out with him, and out of nowhere one day -- while in a deep depression, laying on my bed with tears in my eyes, listening to the cranberries "no need to argue" on repeat with all the lights off -- wishing i had more friends -- or at least nicer friends-- would bum rush my room with a team of his own friends and tell me "get up, you're coming to hang out with us" - knowing me and sensing its what i needed and who, for years, allowed me to "tag along" while making sure i never felt like one.
While maybe it wasn't the most productive or proud years in either of our lives...it was a moment ill never forget and that pulled me from what could have been a deeper and even darker place.
I am thankful for Matt and Brit for seeing a lost girl searching for answers and rather than taking the more overbearing "this is what u need to do and how you need to be" approach filled with quoted scriptures and over-my-head lessons to be learned -- just acted as proud examples of what they knew was right. For the few months they allowed me to hang out at their apartment and lay around and just snuggle my niece while I watched them cook/clean/and go to work. Without asking a thing from me in return. they were my safe haven and my hideout from a secret life i no longer wanted (but was far from over). it was a short term hide out but they will never know the effect those few months had on my young and troubled soul.
my sister Melissa - oh Melissa. The trials our relationship has been put through. Since the day I was born, I believe. And after all of that, you welcome me open armed into your home, into a room thoughtfully decorated especially for me, with a special picture of a "bare" and bearded man who is held so close in my heart and also still sits proudly on my shelf baring his bum to the world to this day. If I could only turn back time and go back to those few months - it would have been different. If only I could have seen all of these beautiful jewels that my life was filled with then. How different things could be. But despite yet another bump that developed in our seemingly ever-turbulent relationship, it seems as though it might be smooth sailing from here.
Finally
Allison. I have rewritten this about 30 times now. i cant help but ramble and struggle for the right words to express my love for you - which I have come to the conclusion just don't exist. the words i DO manage to put together to describe how much i love you -- how lucky i feel to be the one who got to "be there" with you while you grew up -- are but an ounce of what is a massive amount of happy and welcomed "weight" you bring to my life. What I would give for you to timidly knock on my door tonight, after yet another of your famous nightmares, so we could snuggle in bed giggling until i could finally soothe you and comfort you enough to hear your deep and patterned breathing - eyes fluttering - sleeping so soundly, and knowing that the comfort I had brought to you those nights was NOTHING in comparison to the comfort you brought me.
You'll never know the bright shinning star you were in my darkest of dark times. I am forever in debt to that adorable and innocent little stringy-haired girly. She saved me from myself most days.
How blessed I am in this crazy, confusing and often brutal world.
How much I have been given by God.
It amazes me that I am only now coming to see it all.
The future is bright.
Because this once lonely and sad girl, even in the saddest of times, finally sees nothing but blessings surrounding her these days.
Even while she lays in bed for the 14th day in a row with a puke bucket next to her.
:)
Beautifully said.
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