Growing up is hard...

There is something inside me that appears every once in a while and sometimes I can't quite figure out why. It's this feeling that, despite how happy and confident and optimistic I am about my current place in life, I want to just crawl back in time and somehow know what it's like again to not have to "grow up". There's nothing in me that ever shunned growing up.... quite the opposite! Oh no, I was the little 3 year old going on 25 :), and I truly feel that being in the place I am right now is the culmination of just about all my dreams. But sometimes, when I stop to think about friends who have kind of disappeared, or find I have to face these scary things that all of a sudden popped up as we all traveled out of the Never Never Land of our youth, I just think about the days I spent hours dancing in my favorite sparkly dress with Meghan in our front room, while Mommy fed babies and smiled. Or afternoons climbing trees thinking the view I got with my head upside down so high up was the most magical thing in the world. I think about how simple things used to seem, how little petty arguments between friends were completely erased after a matter of time and hugs. And then I think about how fun it would be to go back to that mindset, that energy, for maybe even just an hour. Hmmm....

Then I am drawn sweetly and softly back to my life now. Right now. I got to fall in love. I got to be a bride. I get to be the loveliness that tries to make Ryan's long days fade away. I get to see the fruits of all my dreams all around me as I sit in this home I proudly make. And it's worth all the growing pains, the ones that have hurt and annoyed me so far, and the ones that I am sure will come. It's worth it because every single time I have felt like burying my head and ignoring the hard, painful thing I needed to grow through, but gone ahead and done it, I have grown stronger. So I have to understand that even though I wish sometimes my family, friends and all those I love would never change, and never have to face pain or fear, and never have to "grow up", I know that accepting this real fact of life will only make us all more beautiful and ready to face the good and the bad that we need to. 

Of course we all know that without the awkward growing up part, we would miss out on some of the best moments of our lives. Next post I will try to put some pictures of Ryan's sister Tiffany's engagement party last weekend. Wow talk about bittersweet..... we are so excited for her but her silly husband to be thinks she should move way out to Kentucky with him!!!! Sheesh! ;)