Love

Hello world! I've missed you...somewhere between sifting through the new fancy excel documents in my new job, breakfast for dinner with my man in uniform, and Sunday's in the park with grandma- I have almost forgotten about my blog! Naturally the light when off when I realized I had something to discuss and remember duh I have somewhere to put it! LOVE- no not just the romantic crazy once in a lifetime stuff, but the human compassion kind. I've been seeing it a lot around recently and it all started with my Pastor's wife's sermon to my church on Mother's Day. Usually a tough day for me, I went into this particularly sunny Sunday giving those around me an honest heads up about how I felt about the day. Walking out of church with surprisingly the same amount of dry tissues I entered with (a rarity for many of us that attend Hillsong, and especially for me on such a day) I was shocked by my reaction. Though Mother's day was about a mother's lover- I realize motherly love doesn't just come from moms and isn't only received by children. As I went about my week I started to see the love all around me. Of course the love and support of my own lover, but also from family and friends and even random people on the streets. It was the small acts of kindness that started really sticking out to me once I became aware of how many different forms 'motherly' look could take. I saw this most recently with my new friends at work- new friends who have started to try and make every effort to make me feel as comfortable and accepted as they so desired on their 1st days on the job as well. I heard it in stories, 1 in particular that touched my heart from my grandmother and a close friend that showed her the kind of caring attentive love that she needed. And I saw it in myself when I found out my brother was leaving sooner rather than much later for USMC boot camp. The instinct to immediately make every effort to ensure we A. got to see each out and B. that his short time left before he shipped out was made special. And I was even lucky enough to see some real motherly love- with a woman and her son the subway. So mesmerized by this tiny baby, she inspected every little finger and toe, kissing each one as she became more excited by the next. Love is something that in the recent weeks I have not only become more grateful for, but something I have learned can take different forms of course. And in my experience, it is when you learn to love in different ways, whole heartily and not caring of how silly or ridiculous it looks- it is then the you can feel the true unbelievable effects of love. So for all of you that love me- thank you!! I love you too :) And too all of you who don't want to let the love in- open up the flood gates! Because once you feel it, you'll never want to go back. And that lesson alone made me realize that mother's day doesn't have to be a dark day for me, but rather it can just be a celebration of love in every form every year :)
xoxo AA