But after the skydiving and the weight loss and the marathon and the book, they have disappeared from my social media feeds. Most inspirational blogs (if not all), don't last because those big life-defining moments can't happen over and over again to one person.
This same thing has happened to me. I lost the weight, I rode the roller coaster, I ran the marathon, I fit in an airplane seat and flew to Africa, I came out as a gay Christian, and I fell in love. The newness has faded. People have stopped commenting on my inspiring weight loss every day. It's not often that people talk about my bravery anymore. I don't get to go to the doctor and see a 40 pound weight drop on the scale since my last visit.
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| Two at a time. |
What is your favorite day of the year? Is it a holiday? Maybe Christmas? Every time this question comes up, my answer used to be "December 26th!" The day after Christmas was my favorite because it meant I survived another celebration of family and love and being together. Because I was alone, living states away from my family, and never had a family to be with on Christmas morning. When you're in your 40's and still the "youngest child" in the family, it never feels...right. I would go see my parents on Christmas, or stay here on Christmas. And when I would stay in town on Christmas, I would take my two dogs on a walk through the neighborhood. If it was Christmas Eve, I would walk past food smells and driveways filled with cars and picture windows with sparkling Christmas trees and presents and kids and festive sweaters. And if it was Christmas day, I would walk past trash bins filled with empty boxes and wrapping paper, and people hugging goodbye at their cars, and kids riding their new scooters up and down the street. And I would walk by, with my dogs, and watch the years fade away knowing that that would never be me. And I would go home, with my dogs, to a house with one car in the garage, an empty trash bin, and a lonely kitchen.
The newness of my last year has faded. And thank God that it has. The things in life that, if you have a family, may seem annoying and mundane to you, are magical to me. I fell in love this year. God has perfect timing, and it was only after I learned to love myself that God created space for me to be loved by the most amazing woman I have ever met. She lets me run errands with her. I get to go to Sam's Club and buy these giant packs of vitamin waters and oatmeal and snacks and cereal because there are four of us. (Sam's Club really isn't designed for living single!) She invites me to events at her school, she lets me into family life and sports practices and orthodontist's appointments and endless piles of laundry and a full dishwasher and family movie nights and first day of school pictures.
And Christmas. And by some divine intervention, she got me to love Christmas again. And not only Christmas. She got me to love Halloween, and the first day of spring, and birthdays, and weekends, and snow days, and traditions. Family traditions.
This year will be the first year of my life that I will decorate my own home for Christmas. And we will do it up big. Halloween too. And maybe also just random Tuesdays because...why not? When Julie and I went to South Africa earlier this month, we were struck by the fact that every animal we saw on our safari travelled with a partner. Elephants, Rhinocerous, hippos, zebras, penguins, elk, giraffes - all in two's. I think I did ok for 42 years traveling alone. But now that I am traveling with a partner, I see all the magic. Every little bit of it. Not only that, but we get to travel in a pack with kids as a foursome.
If that's not magical, I don't know what is.
