another one for the taylormade spotlight! please don't feel obligated to read this NOVEL. lololol. these thoughts are very random and unorganized, but as i said... the fresher things are on your heart... the more powerful they are.

credits...
in moderation kit by taylormade designs (oscraps)

you have been through so much this past year. i know some of the details still dont quite add up and some make perfect sense. i know that the story that has unfolded looks completely different from your perspective than it does from mine. all of ours does. its interesting how the facts of the story are all the same, yet when you look at it as your story or my story, it looks and feels completely different. i know, i know. everyone keeps telling me that kids are surprisingly resilient. and i do believe that. but at the same time, i know how deeply intertwined my childhood memories and feelings are with my adult life. they set the tone for how i receive love, how i communicate love, how much i believe in love. so i refuse to believe that i am to ignore or dismiss your feelings and your behavior based on the sheer hope that you will simply bounce back. im just not willing to leave you to yourself and your thoughts and let you take whatever assumptions you have made and just sit around and hope that they dont have a negative impact on you or your self-worth. please do not misunderstand me. im certainly not saying that you are not capable of drawing your own conclusions. and im not at all saying that i think i know whats in your heart or your mind and that i want some type of control over that. not at all. but i am adament about the fact that being 9 years old and hearing and seeing the events that took place from a distance... some things just are not what they seem. people do and say things that do not always make sense.. even to them. im so sorry you sat in your room on more than one occassion fearful and worried that dad and i were going to get a divorce. it kills me to know that you sat alone and listened to the screaming, the cussing, things being broken, and worried that i wasnt safe. i hate that you went even one day thinking that you werent good enough or wondered if dad really loves you. i know how much he loves you and i know how he hurts when he thinks of the damage that was caused. and i pray that the many ways we have seen you come back to life since things are better arent short lived and that you will only continue to heal and be restored. i pray that everything you saw, heard, and felt this year only makes you stronger. i pray that how you saw things go from worse than theyve ever been to being the best theyve ever been can plant a seed in your heart that recognizing love for what it is... and almost more importantly, what love is not. it isnt alwyas easy. its very rarely perfect. and in no way should it ever be taken lightly. it can be the main source of fulfillment and wholeness for you as long as you allow it to. but i speak from experience when i say that the things we are subjected to in our lifetime can completely distort how we see love. it can ruin it, in fact. i know that nothing i can ever say can prepare you for times when love gets scary or overwhelming. but i can send you out into this world with at least the knowledge that there will be problems and hopefully, teach you how identify these problems and give them their proper name. because believe me, love can be the most beautiful thing youve ever seen, but it can also be the single most excruciating thing you will ever encounter. but pain does not always equal bad. pleasure does not always equal healthy. good does not always equal best. hard does not always equal worst. loss does not always equal defeat and winning does not always equal victory. over does not always equal end. love does not always equal happiness. i believe that... being that love in and of itself is creates direct access to your heart and that god designed it this way puposely. he uses love a lot to teach us things about ourselves, about each other, about him. take what we have gone thorugh for instance. had we not gone through this year... had we not endured that emotional rollercoaster that was our life for a while, then the very cycle that it all stemmed from would have simply continued. and trust me. i see that parallel so crystal clear that i still feel my heart jump in defense when i think of what things *may* have been like. its ugly. but we stopped a cycle. i learned more about you and dad and alyssa that i never wouldve been able to without where life took us. its so unbelivably important for you to understand that this past year was NOT about you. it was NOT about alyssa. it was about me and dad and the cycles he and i have both come from. we both have a ton of baggage and consequently, we had a ton of misconceptions about what love looks like. about what communicates it to others. and we were blindly walking the path that would have lead you and alyssa to the exact same place. now what i also understand about parallels is that everything has one. so although we were able to break this particular cycle, we simply created another. and we have no way of knowing whether or not this cycle is healthy or destructive. i despartely want to believe that by surviving all of this that we somehow saved your fate. that now the hardships of life will simply pass you by and i need not worry. but that is niave. its not reality and its a dangerous zone to get comfortable in. and quite frankly, its selfish. to wish a life of no hurts or hard times. i know this sounds ludicrous, but i do not at all wish that for you. i know that there will be times when pain is the only thing that can teach you. it can be the only thing that breaks through any walls you build around you throughout your life. and the AMAZING feeling that you will experience when you get through your pain it can be literally be euphoric. pain in and of itself can bring you so close to god that you can almost touch him. i think the biggest thing i have learned though is how to recognize pain and how to make your heart and mind actually default to hope and assurance that this too shall pass. things will always, always, always shift. from bad to good, good to better, then all the way back down to worst again. they will always shift. a simple awareness of that fact can pull you through way more than you think youre capable of getting through. i truly believe that this is gods way of preparing us for what he has in store for us. and being aware of the parallel is vital. ms. mary beth once said to me while describing what she went through, i can either either choose life or i can choose death.. i choose life. that sounds simple enough right? hahaha. it is anything but. in the heat of the moment.. when life just seems too much to take, its so much easier to give up. to step aside and let the parallel take over. but choosing life. its a matter of hell now, heaven later. believe in hope, baby. choose to believe that things will shift. choose to believe that you are loved and you are saved.