I would have spoken on this topic a while ago but I've been lax in my blogging. Anyway, what have I learned from our new President and First Lady?
I have learned that this country is progressing in the right direction in so many ways, just look at his policy ideas. I have learned that if the President is all addicted to his cell then dammit I can be too. I've learned that when you get people to come together things that we have hoped and wanted to happen even years down the road can come to fruition. And one unseemingly important thing that I have learned is that you can be married, have children, be independent, have careers, and PTA meetings, and family, and run this very nation and still be madly in love with that person you met so many years ago, madly in love and have the entire world watch in awe and sometimes envy.
I think that is so important, its important for the young people of our country who have never seen a stable, supportive, loving relationship. Its important for the random couple in the random town who thinks its ok that they don't care as much as they used to. It is important for the newlyweds having their first major argument wondering what the hell they have gotten themselves into. Its important for the man who thinks he has to be cold to be powerful. For the woman who thinks she'll never find it. And its important to me.
I did not grow up in a stable home whatsoever. The main father figure in my life, my Papa died when I was six leaving me in a home full of women. I had a father who was barely there, was sometimes babysat by an aunt who's husband was abusive to her, and sometimes had the privilege of looking up to my sister's father when... when he would come into town. As I got older I was shuffled around homes, mostly without a male role model. I saw my mother date a man who pulled her away from her children, stayed often with a cousin who thought the Married Man was a new commodity, and went to school with girls just in their teens who had been giving it up for years and knew more than my young ears could comprehend about those things in their lives that shouldn't have been up for discussion.
Its not a surprise that once I could actually date I settled, often and all around. Settling because not really knowing how a relationship works you just want to be a part of something and you compromise yourself over and over again. I don't regret any of those relationships though, despite all the hardship you may go through with someone, coming out on the other side you have always learned something, if you can't see what it is that you have learned from sharing your life and spirit with another person I believe you haven't looked hard enough or maybe you have yet to get what it is that you were meant to get from that person.
As I moved into being an adult it wasn't until one night that I realized that I didn't have to settle, this story being long I won't really go into to much detail. I will say that when you sit and talk with a woman who is losing the man she has been married to for decades to a disease that is taking away his energy and his spirit and she can only guess how much time they will have together you get to see a side of relationships that you didn't know could exist. And somehow your settling seems to negate all the things you've learned in those moments and settling becomes intolerable.
Listening to her talk about what she loved about him and what she wishes she could have done, and you see yourself settling for something in life that isn't worth 1/100th of what they have and you know despite what may come in the future, how difficult the road ahead may be that their love is the kind of love you want. A love that you don't settle for. A love that loves you all the same. One that goes above and beyond, and sits with you sick, stays up late nights all for love. You want the silence that lies in the moments of love, and the noise that comes with happiness and laughter. You want the hardships not because you are a masochist but because you know they will only make you stronger. You want the heat of passion, and the softness in that love. Appreciation and patience, compromise and forgiveness. You want the title in love, the he is mine in love. The protection in love and she is mine in love. You want the support in love and to give it all the same. And in that moment you know that you can have all those things if you don't settle and if you try hard.
Then time passes...
You never forget that night sitting in the dimly lit room with the weight of the world weighing heavily upon this woman. The frustration and pain and last bit of optimism that she could muster while her husband lays in pain in the next room receiving those in his life for the last time. How could you forget that?
But time passes.
Time passes and you get a job, you are tired and exhausted, and you compromise a little too much. Then something happens that makes you remember all the things you wanted before and you start over. You start over and its beautiful and amazing.
But times passes. You make plans, you get tired, you work, and you drive, you argue, and misunderstand. You ignore patience, and compromise and support, but this time all those things are worth it. Somehow in this hardship there is not settling, its just the road to making things better but you have to both want it to be better, both of you have to try.
And then, you go stand in the cold to watch the leader of our free nation take his place in history with the love of his life firmly by his side. And you stay glued to the television all day. You fall asleep because you are exhausted and when you wake up and look at the television you watch them dance. With all the stresses and the pomp and circumstance, the traditions and dos and don'ts in the midst of all of these people it is just those two, our President and his first lady. You know that you had that, you know there are ups and downs and if you really want that and if its really worth you will give all of yourself until your very last breath to make sure that you have that love. The love that others envy, the love that inspires, and awes, the love that transcends whatever goes on around it and in the end stands on high.
**fIrefLY**
I have learned that this country is progressing in the right direction in so many ways, just look at his policy ideas. I have learned that if the President is all addicted to his cell then dammit I can be too. I've learned that when you get people to come together things that we have hoped and wanted to happen even years down the road can come to fruition. And one unseemingly important thing that I have learned is that you can be married, have children, be independent, have careers, and PTA meetings, and family, and run this very nation and still be madly in love with that person you met so many years ago, madly in love and have the entire world watch in awe and sometimes envy.
I think that is so important, its important for the young people of our country who have never seen a stable, supportive, loving relationship. Its important for the random couple in the random town who thinks its ok that they don't care as much as they used to. It is important for the newlyweds having their first major argument wondering what the hell they have gotten themselves into. Its important for the man who thinks he has to be cold to be powerful. For the woman who thinks she'll never find it. And its important to me.
I did not grow up in a stable home whatsoever. The main father figure in my life, my Papa died when I was six leaving me in a home full of women. I had a father who was barely there, was sometimes babysat by an aunt who's husband was abusive to her, and sometimes had the privilege of looking up to my sister's father when... when he would come into town. As I got older I was shuffled around homes, mostly without a male role model. I saw my mother date a man who pulled her away from her children, stayed often with a cousin who thought the Married Man was a new commodity, and went to school with girls just in their teens who had been giving it up for years and knew more than my young ears could comprehend about those things in their lives that shouldn't have been up for discussion.
Its not a surprise that once I could actually date I settled, often and all around. Settling because not really knowing how a relationship works you just want to be a part of something and you compromise yourself over and over again. I don't regret any of those relationships though, despite all the hardship you may go through with someone, coming out on the other side you have always learned something, if you can't see what it is that you have learned from sharing your life and spirit with another person I believe you haven't looked hard enough or maybe you have yet to get what it is that you were meant to get from that person.
As I moved into being an adult it wasn't until one night that I realized that I didn't have to settle, this story being long I won't really go into to much detail. I will say that when you sit and talk with a woman who is losing the man she has been married to for decades to a disease that is taking away his energy and his spirit and she can only guess how much time they will have together you get to see a side of relationships that you didn't know could exist. And somehow your settling seems to negate all the things you've learned in those moments and settling becomes intolerable.
Listening to her talk about what she loved about him and what she wishes she could have done, and you see yourself settling for something in life that isn't worth 1/100th of what they have and you know despite what may come in the future, how difficult the road ahead may be that their love is the kind of love you want. A love that you don't settle for. A love that loves you all the same. One that goes above and beyond, and sits with you sick, stays up late nights all for love. You want the silence that lies in the moments of love, and the noise that comes with happiness and laughter. You want the hardships not because you are a masochist but because you know they will only make you stronger. You want the heat of passion, and the softness in that love. Appreciation and patience, compromise and forgiveness. You want the title in love, the he is mine in love. The protection in love and she is mine in love. You want the support in love and to give it all the same. And in that moment you know that you can have all those things if you don't settle and if you try hard.
Then time passes...
You never forget that night sitting in the dimly lit room with the weight of the world weighing heavily upon this woman. The frustration and pain and last bit of optimism that she could muster while her husband lays in pain in the next room receiving those in his life for the last time. How could you forget that?
But time passes.
Time passes and you get a job, you are tired and exhausted, and you compromise a little too much. Then something happens that makes you remember all the things you wanted before and you start over. You start over and its beautiful and amazing.
But times passes. You make plans, you get tired, you work, and you drive, you argue, and misunderstand. You ignore patience, and compromise and support, but this time all those things are worth it. Somehow in this hardship there is not settling, its just the road to making things better but you have to both want it to be better, both of you have to try.
And then, you go stand in the cold to watch the leader of our free nation take his place in history with the love of his life firmly by his side. And you stay glued to the television all day. You fall asleep because you are exhausted and when you wake up and look at the television you watch them dance. With all the stresses and the pomp and circumstance, the traditions and dos and don'ts in the midst of all of these people it is just those two, our President and his first lady. You know that you had that, you know there are ups and downs and if you really want that and if its really worth you will give all of yourself until your very last breath to make sure that you have that love. The love that others envy, the love that inspires, and awes, the love that transcends whatever goes on around it and in the end stands on high.
**fIrefLY**
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