choices.

I’m choosing important over necessary.  

What’s necessary? Presentations, reading, quizzes, some rest before classes start up again. There’s always more to do for work or school, but sometimes you just need to be.. you.  To say yes when you may have “thought better against it”, to do something that makes you smile from the inside.. from the very essence of you.

This weekend I let myself do that.

So what happened instead of the routine?

A lazy night with my best friend since kindergarten. 

A 6am car ride to the train station with my triple-digit-aged autistic friend Lawrence.  (He’s really only 65, and he also still thinks I’m 17). 

A run along the beach and up a hill that made my thighs feel better than they have in a long while. 

An ice cold shower (because it’s not always about what I want.. and that’s a wonderful truth). 

And what I learned?

Well, 

Thank the Lord for Jenna. For friendship going on 17 years. There’s something special about a relationship where words never seem to fade, but if they do the silence is still comforting. Something special about someone who knows you.  The best and worst of you, and still chooses to love you anyway. Can’t wait for her to meet the great man she deserves.

This morning Lawrence told me all about the NFL, reminded me that he thinks I’m a “great person” a dozen times, and apologized for his shaking hands (completely unnecessary). What he really taught me: encourage each other. Tell a friend something true. If you love someone, say it. It’s the little things - like walking an older & wiser friend to his train seat - that remain with you.  Their smile & appreciation for you, simply because you are you.

 My goodness, a good run can change a lot of things.  Running along the edge of the southwest edge of the continent doesn’t hurt either.  I saw a couple tie the knot while I passed.  What a beautiful thing, to publicly commit to another.  Someone that you love inside and out. I imagine, when my day comes, I’ll have this “hell yeah” kinda feeling. Where you can’t get the smile off your face, even if you try. Can’t wait until my best friend & husband are one in the same. Well I can definitely wait. But you know what I mean. 

Lastly.. that cold shower. I wake up every morning with the choice to have a hot shower, a cold shower, or anywhere in between (but who ever really chooses cold?).  Now bear with me on this, I’m just typing as I think.  We have choices. Hundreds. Every day.  We are powerful enough to say yes to one thing and no to another.  How did we get so lucky? I don’t like that word.. lucky.  But why am I here, in California, with loving parents, given seemingly unending opportunities, with people so dear to my heart all around?  There’s gotta be a reason for it all.  A reason I’ve been given the opportunity to be a word, or smile, or support to someone else.  I think we’ve all been given that opportunity, we just don’t always take it.  We’re in this thing called life together. Now I love that word.. together.  There’s not 6+billion people on this planet for no good reason.

Recognition of each other, of life, of beauty is what we need. And reconciliation, we need that too.   Loving one another is the best and hardest thing all at the same time.  And so worth it. 

Choose something beautiful & worthwhile today. I dare you.