If I were to describe a person who “keeps herself well,” I might mention her figure, her clothing or her hair, how she remembers to wear earrings and makeup or how she smiles at appropriate times. I might say this with a twinge of jealousy, as if I am talking about someone who has something I want.  

So, imagine my surprise when Daniel and I had our second-ever couples massage in Asheville last weekend. Cornelius, the older Dutch gentlemen, had been at work on my shoulders for about thirty seconds when he said, “I can tell you’ve taken time for yoga or some stretching.” I acknowledged that I had, for more than 10 years, though not as often as I’d like. “You have kept yourself well,” he said.

After the massage, he remarked that he rarely encounters a client who is so “consistently relaxed.”

Am I bragging? Hardly. Astounded? For sure.

Words I might use to describe myself: passionate, structured, abrasive, contemplative (read: anxious), and, at once, driven and lazy. Notice I did not, nor would I ever say, “laid back” or “relaxed.” So this reading—based soley on physical evidence—shocked me, and I have reveled in and pondered it since.

“If you have figured out how to do that, why haven’t you told me?” Daniel asked.

I am a vocal proponent of caring for oneself,  but that doesn’t mean I’m good at it. For mothers especially, working or home, self-care can be complicated and difficult. It can seem counterintuitive: To be a better wife and mother, I need not always focus on caring for my children or my spouse;  sometimes I need to turn my focus on myself. For some, that just doesn’t compute. I have often lamented the Herculean efforts it sometimes takes to work out the logistics. And though I have been trying this year to do a better job nurturing my mind and soul as well as my body, I fail more than I succeed.

But the proof is in my apparently relaxed muscles, I suppose.  Here’s what Cornelius gave me along with that compliment: He affirmed that what I am doing now is enough.  I don’t need to wait until the kids are older or there is more time or I have more resources to turn my attention more fully toward my own wellness. He told me that my efforts today matter, despite my feeling that they mostly don’t.  

I wrote this in the “relaxing” environment of my cluttered sunroom, ignoring a sink full of dirty dishes and a basket of laundry on my couch, with shoes and jackets cast haphazardly by my front door, in my sweaty workout clothes. Because my daughters were at school and my son was sleeping. Because I knew there would be time to do dishes and fold laundry and collect shoes and jackets (however inefficiently), when he woke up.

Because keeping myself well on this particular day meant taking my daughter on a nature walk to preschool and walking with the baby after that.  It meant putting the baby down and making myself a fresh cup of coffee and an omelet that required chopping vegetables  (thus adding to my dirty dish pile), and eating it by an open window.

This does not come naturally. I’m the one in my circle of friends who introduced the idea of doing things to help your future self. Would future Christina want to wake up to lunches to pack or a kitchen to clean? Do it now, for future you, I’d advise. These words echo in my head daily. But not this day. None of these activities shortened my to-do list. But I can’t wait until everything is done to relax, because everything is never done. Sometimes future me needs to back off.

Maybe time isn’t a luxury you have. Sometimes I lament the luxuries I no longer have, like words of affirmation, or cute shoes, or conversations with adults. Maybe you don’t have a spare dime to spend on yourself. Don’t let those things distract you. This isn’t a thing you do because it’s convenient or it makes sense.

Last week I had the type of health scare that’s enough to keep you up at night. One night, as I tried to fall asleep, I prayed my worries wordlessly, trying to find peace. I was almost asleep when I bolted upright, gasping for air and shaking my head in disbelief. I heard two words so clearly that they shook me from my half-sleep: Don’t wait.

I was terrified. It wasn’t the kind of fear when you wake from a nightmare and slowly realize it wasn’t real. It wasn’t even that those words were a sense of foreboding, that something was definitely wrong with my health. It was something totally different, something that felt mysterious and much, much bigger than me.

Since then I faced a diagnostic test that declared me just fine, but I haven’t stopped mulling over those words. I am not arrogant enough to dismiss a message because of the dubious way it’s been relayed.  The night before my test I did a word search in every Bible translation I could find for the phrase “don’t wait.” I found a handful of verses, but none that I felt spoke to me in that moment.  Now that the panic has passed, I can’t stop thinking about them. I don’t want to miss whatever I could be learning here.

Ecclesiastes 12:6

Yes, remember your Creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken. Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well.

Ecclesiastes 5:4

When you make a promise to God, don’t wait too long to carry it out. He isn’t pleased with foolish people. So do what you have promised.

Psalm 40:17

But I am poor and needy. May the Lord be concerned about me. You are the One who helps me and saves me. My God, please don’t wait any longer.

Until this experience, I truly didn’t realize I was waiting for anything. But in the 10 days I’ve been sitting with these words, I see it so clearly. We’ve lived here for 9 months, yet sometimes I behave as if I just got here. Sure, there were extenuating circumstances, but still. Unintentionally, I’ve used this adjustment time as an excuse to put a lot of things off. Once we get settled, I might say, I will be more intentional about investing in new friends. Once the baby is sleeping through the night, I will do a better job structuring life for my other two kids. My house will run smoother; I will run smoother. Once I get my home under better control, I will be more generous with it. Once I feel more in control of my schedule I will share my time and serve others. Once the baby is more predictable, I will take better care of myself.

Sure, all of these are legitimate things. I’m not beating myself up. But truthfully the message “don’t wait” doesn’t sit well with me. It pulls me out of a relatively comfortable place. It whispers again, loud enough to wake me from my complacency:

Don’t wait until you feel ready to give of yourself, your time, your home, your talents.

Don’t wait to lavish love on others, even if you don’t know them well yet.

Don’t wait until the house is perfect to invite others in.

Don’t wait until your soul is fed and your heart is contented to serve others and speak joy into their lives.

Don’t wait until you have “more time” to call someone you love and be an ear for them.

Don’t wait until the to-do list is done to play and delight and enjoy your children.

Don’t wait until the mundane is managed to look your spouse in the eye and connect with him.

Don’t wait to have hard conversations that might mend old hurts.

Don’t wait for the absence of fear to try something new.

Don’t wait until you’ve found extra time to start taking care of your body and your soul. 

For the love of God, don’t wait.

What this time of striving and exhaustion and falling short and adjusted expectations is teaching me is this: In this season of my life, there will always be another load of laundry to fold, more floors than I can keep swept, another meal to cook, more dishes to put away, another child to bathe, another toy on the floor, more toothpaste in the sink, or another errand to run. 

I can let these things wear me down, and in my still-sleepless state, it’s not hard to do that. Or I can look at all of this mess as an indication that my life is filled to overflowing with blessings. I have a lapful of sweet children who want me to look up! To stop working! To play with them! I can’t do everything, but I can do that. 

This house we were so blessed to find is more than I can manage on a daily basis at this time in my life. I am doing the best I can. But the reason we bought it wasn’t so I could spend all my time cleaning it; we hoped it would be a haven to our family and a welcome respite to anyone who entered it. We hoped and prayed we would have chances to use it to bless others—family, old friends, new friends and even people we don’t know well yet. It doesn’t have to be perfectly renovated to do that. It doesn’t have to be spotless. Our overgrown yard doesn’t have to be under control. We just have to be warm and inviting and willing. We can’t be those things if the door is closed.

Right now two of my children are napping and I am not cleaning or organizing anything or being otherwise “productive.” But if I wait until everything is done before I feed my soul, it will starve. If it starves, then I am not being responsible with these others—namely, my husband and children—who have been placed in my care. 

Our little one is still not sleeping reliably, so neither am I. It’s wearing on me. I feel justified saying I can’t stay up with or go out with Daniel because I’m just too tired. But slightly less sleep here and there is a small price to pay for a renewed connection with the one my heart loves. It’s easy to forget about him because he’s self sufficient—he doesn’t need me like our children do. He’s the least squeaky of all the wheels. But I can’t wait to invest in us; it’s too important.

I hope these words have challenged you to rethink how you order your days, but please don’t let them make you feel judged or heavy. I still don’t know whether I am doing with them what is meant for me, but I feel completely certain they were meant to offer freedom and relief, not additional burden. There is grace and joy and peace and it’s all there for the taking now, not in some ill-defined future when everything has changed. Don’t wait.

Before I became a mother, and before I started getting older, I had never given much thought to the nature of beauty. I knew I could see it in a variety of colors, shapes, sizes and ages. I knew I had seen it in the face of a baby, of my mother, and of my grandmother. Of course I knew it was easier to see and accept in others than in myself, but I had heard it said about me, and sometimes I had even seen it.

When I had my daughters—my second one in particular—I found myself giving more consideration to beauty, what comprises it, and how to talk about it. Now over thirty and the mother of two, my body doesn’t look the way it did before, and mostly I don’t give it more thought than it deserves. As I’ve aged I’ve embraced eating and exercising for health—not appearance or weight—and I am able to focus on that. But my face doesn’t look like it did before either, and that’s been much harder.

After I had Emerie, I developed melasma, hyperpigmentation of the skin often caused by hormonal changes and made worse by the sun. I’ve seen an aesthetician, had facials, and tried countless over-the-counter products and natural concoctions to get it to go away. In many women, it fades when their pregnancy is over or they are finished nursing. But mine is still going stronger than ever 2 ½ years after all that. There are more drastic steps—harsh prescriptions and laser treatments—but they are expensive and I’m not at a point that I’m ready to take them. So now I look for heavy makeup to cover it up. This condition has made me resentful, because it causes me to focus more on my appearance than I have before. Though I’ve always worn makeup, I typically favor a natural look. Now I don’t go anywhere without makeup. The idea of camping or swimming (an activity I love) makes me cringe. These splotches on my face have challenged everything I ever said about beauty and confidence and how they both come from inside.

Except they can’t. Trying to raise two little girls into strong young women is not easy, especially surrounded by messages that tell them their appearance is the most important thing. My children listen to the words I say; I know because they repeat them to unsuspecting strangers all the time. But more than that, I know they watch what I do. Lately I’ve been fielding questions about appearance. We talk about how beauty comes from who we are, not what we look like. When someone we love calls herself fat, we talk about how some people are big and some people are small and all people are valuable and worthy of love. We talk about all the things our bodies do for us and how grateful we are for them, no matter what they look like. When we see someone who looks different than we do, we talk privately about the differences and how we don’t comment on people’s appearances; we just show them kindness and love. We talk about how God made everyone, how He doesn’t make mistakes, and how everyone is beautiful.

All of this makes sense to me, especially when focused on others. But when the focus turns inward, it’s harder and maybe even more important to my children's development. As we prepared to go to the pool one day, I sighed and applied concealer to my forehead, knowing my efforts were futile. Mirabella watched me in the mirror.

“Mommy, when you put that stuff on your face, I can hardly see your spots,” she said, innocently.

I hadn’t even known she had noticed them before. “You know,” I winced, “I didn’t always have these spots. I got them after I had Emerie. Sometimes our bodies change when we have babies or get older.”

“Huh,” Mirabella said, watching every move.

“Do you think I’m still beautiful, even with the spots?” I asked her.

“Of course you are,” she replied quickly, “because you’re my mommy.”

As they often do, my children remind me that I would do well to apply the acceptance, kindness, forgiveness and love I teach to myself.  This modeling might be more instrumental in the way they regard themselves than anything I could ever say.

I remember riding shotgun in a good ol’ boy’s Jeep in college. I don’t remember where we were going.  I don’t remember who was with us. I don’t even remember his name. But I remember a comment he made that his daddy had told him about never driving faster than the distance his headlights could shine.

Lately I am reminded of this idea of outrunning the light—of devoting mental space and worry to a time that’s not yet here.  When we are waiting for something: a change to come, an answer to be given, a circumstance to let up, we can feel paralyzed. I’ve often likened waiting like this to living in darkness; I don’t know what’s coming next.

I know people who get excited about the unknown. They love feeling out of control; like anything can happen. The older I get, that’s just not me. It’s not that I’m under the delusion that I’m in control of everything—I know I control very little. But I like to know what’s coming.

I’ve been ruminating on a line from the Avett Brothers song “Live and Die” that says, “All it will take is just one moment and you can say good-bye to how we had it planned.” Except it’s taking me far longer than one moment.

So many things in our life, from where we live to what we do, are far outside what I had previously been able to imagine. For them I am unspeakably grateful. Still, there are other things I thought would be different at this point, and they just aren’t.  My need to acknowledge these— and mourn them— has surprised me more than their lack of existence in the first place.

I’m not dismissing the role or importance of responsibility and planning for the future to the best that you can. I am a born planner; I thrive on it. Always there is some sort of balance between faith and diligence. But there are things that cannot be predicted and days that cannot be planned.  I wonder where we will end up, and when that will change. I wonder what the makeup of our family will look like in the end. I wonder who will join us that isn’t here yet. I wonder when and how. Sometimes this wonder is healthy and hopeful, and sometimes it is problematic in its ability to distract.

When I focus on what may or may not come, whether it be in wonder or worry, I take my focus off the blessings I’ve already been given and the responsibilities I am currently charged with. I fully believe it’s essential to dream and to wonder.  But my priority must be to make beautiful things—whether they be investing in our community, building friendships, looking for opportunities to show love and share kindness, or making memories with my husband and our quickly growing children—right now, with what I already have in front of me.

I will not often know what’s coming, and even when I do, it’s bound to change. But I can do my best with what I’ve got where I am. And I can commit to striving to live in the light of this moment and learn through and from it—even when it brings with it uncertainty about what may follow. 

Today I stumbled upon a beautiful reminder, not surprisingly, while in search of something else:
“You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.” (1 Thessalonians 5:5).

Let’s live in the light of today.

Let me start by saying I am not an extrovert.  If an extrovert is expressive and outgoing, then that’s often me.  But I also let calls go to voicemail for reasons even I’m not sure of.  I’d rather communicate in writing whenever I’m able.  And yet, in social situations, I can be engaging, gregarious, and even have fun doing it.  Before we moved to Tennessee, I had regular dates with myself that are on my calendar as “Christina’s Time.”  Sometimes I spent this time with a friend over drinks downtown, but more often I spent it with my laptop at a coffee shop, or getting lost in a bookstore.

I always miss my Daniel when he is away, but there is a part of me that longs for those hours after bedtime in a quiet house, just me, a candle and a fireplace and my words—a combination of the heard, the written and the read.  My days always start better when I am up first, early and alone.  On these days as I walk the hills with my iPod or open blinds and brew coffee, I have time and space to think over the day, to breathe deeply and prepare.  To move, to stretch, to read, to plan.  Before everyone needs me.

But when we moved away from our family, to a place where we knew no one, there was nothing restorative about that kind of solitude.  I learned I needed community—if not friends, if not confidantes—a village.  People who understood my station in life, if not yet me.  I had thought this would come first in the form of church.  And strangely, we’ve been here seven months and that’s still not the case (though I think it’s getting closer).

I know “church” is a word that doesn’t make everyone feel warm or welcome or loved. And I really do get it.  For years, as a pastor’s kid,  I saw the church from the inside, and it often wasn’t pretty. Thank goodness God and love are not confined to the houses we've built for them.

I’ve been in Baptist churches, a Pentecostal church, non-denominational churches, between churches, and on the outskirts, which is where I’ve found myself lately.  Though we have become regular attenders of a particular church, that’s been it.  I’ve never been hung up on the physical spaces—having attended churches in so many forms—but that’s about what it’s been for us so far here.  A place to go.  And that is all.

In Baltimore, more often than the place we went on Sunday, Church happened on a weeknight. We met in noisy, crowded kitchens over collaborative meals that were usually ill-planned but always seemed to be the perfect mix, always seemed to be enough.  We met in good times and sadness; we brought questions and doubts, many that never found answers.  We were so very different.  But together, we were the best kind of family. We chose to come together; we chose to stay together.  We chose to show up for each other--for our families-- on birthdays and bad days, for new babies, hurt babies, lost babies. In times of mourning and loss, on first days and moving days.  We miss them most days.

Ronald Rollheiser says, “Church  is … walking to God within a community. To attempt to make spirituality a private affair is to reject part of our very nature and walk inside of a loneliness that God himself has damned.”

I’m not sure this is meant to be taken quite as literal as it can seem.  I think there is need and room for both private and communal spirituality.  I can’t always reconcile my craving for solitude and space to dwell and ponder with my need to know and be known, my desire to process out loud.

This doesn't look the same for everyone, I know.  For me, lately, it has meant finding community with similarly disoriented women, and with others who are surer of their steps. It’s meant finding people to listen to and be authentic with, even if I’m not always sure I’ll be accepted. Just now, through our church, it’s starting to mean our family is finding individuals and families to share our meals and stories and lives with.

We still have a place we enjoy going on Sunday mornings. It’s a place that welcomes anyone, no matter their background or attire. We are finding it’s a place where people believe everyone matters and they actually live that out, here and all over. We still believe this belonging is important (and if you live near us, you can sit with us any time). 

But I have lived the last seven months in a different kind of Church…one where we seek and ask and walk to God together. We listen to heartaches, offer hope, sit in stillness, share laughter, wisdom and time, make food for the weary, offer and accept kindnesses to and from near strangers, and care for each other’s babies.

I still think it’s hard to be vulnerable. Scary to be authentic. Lately I have relished stolen moments writing alone at my new favorite coffee house while Daniel stays with the girls. I still value my solitude. But there’s just no reason to live unknowing and unknown. The upside-- being loved well and learning to do the same-- is just too great.  Here's hoping we find our people, however beautifully flawed we all may be.

Recently someone who sort of knew me a long time ago asked me the secret to my success. Naturally, this made me laugh nervously, look around my messy, suburban life and think, "What success?"

My reaction got me thinking. In my stunted grad school attempt, I had to record myself answering interview questions.  Daniel was my interviewer. He asked me what “success” meant to me.

I have always known to say that success is not achievable by income or status, and it turns out I still believe those things are true.  But we have debt, for a multitude of reasons we don’t own a home anymore, and this past year we’ve been learning to live on one income. I have chosen to forgo what was turning out to be a lucrative career to be home with my babies while I still can. 

When I became a working mother, I sometimes thought immediate success would be having a choice to make about whether to stay home.  Other times I thought success meant being there for every milestone. Now that I’m home, I see it’s more complicated.  I wonder if my decision—while the right one for us at this time—means I will not ever know career success.

And then there’s the issue of passion. I envy teachers, doctors, fire fighters, even politicians; I envy people who have always known what they wanted to be.  Who have the kind of jobs little kids say they want when they grow up. For many of them, making a living is an extension of their passion. How very convenient, I think. I remember, in the aforementioned grad school attempt, sitting beside people who worked at National Geographic or the Smithsonian, people who found fulfillment in their work. And while I have always tried to make the most of whatever situation I’m in, I have not yet found creative fulfillment in a job I’ve had. Since I was a second grader, I said I wanted to be a writer. So now I write here, for you, for me, for anonymous passersby, but it’s without the expectation that it will ever line my pockets.

So, then what success? I wrote this in a few moments of blissful silence while my beautiful blonde spitfires slept upstairs. That day I made breakfast and lunch, put two children in timeout a combined total of five times, bought groceries, and did laundry.  Later we headed to the library, too close to dinner, and Daniel met us out to eat.  Every day doesn’t look like this day. And, on the surface, to me, it doesn’t look “successful.” 

But, at least for today, my children and family are healthy. I’m married to a man I still adore and who really is my best friend. We have the things we really need. I have creative outlets, albeit not income generating ones, and friends that love me, albeit not ones I can hug very frequently.

In my interview I remember saying something about not worrying. I thought being successful would mean attaining peace. I can’t say I’ve realized my 24-year-old self’s idea of success.  I still worry—about money, that something may happen to me, to my kids, to my traveling husband.
I still actively seek peace. I have dreams I’m not sure I’ll ever realize.

But I don’t take enough time to be thankful for all that I already have.

I think Facebook and Pinterest are partly to blame.  Most of us are guilty of posting only our red letter moments online—the highlights—for all to see. I don’t take pictures of myself on days without  mascara or when I’m wearing those wretched faded black yoga pants Daniel is liable to throw away at any moment.  Even when I share slip ups, I don’t really let you in. It’s all done in a self-deprecating way so that you’ll think I’m charming and relatable, but I don’t share the darkest days. I don’t want to acknowledge or immortalize them, so why would I share?  And I know that’s what most people do.  Their Pinterest boards reflect the homes, wardrobes, and hobbies they’d like to have, not necessarily the ones they actually do.  They’re not trying to mislead anyone, and neither am I.

The problem is that I forget, and I think many of us do.  I compare the galleries of nights out, smiling children and best meals with my dark room of unfolded laundry, temper tantrums, and not yet developed potential. It doesn’t mean I’m going to stop posting highlights—they are what make all the rest of life worth it—but I’m going to try to remember that that’s what everyone else is doing too.

Why not step away from the social media and comparisons with me. What does success really look like? And are you certain you haven’t found it yet?

We really ought to get out of our own way.

Somebody that I used to know used to wait. He’d pray— specifically, expectantly— and then he’d wait.  I was alternately inspired by his complete, pure faith, and irritated by his inaction.

I think of him when I face decisions, when I pray for big change. There is something to having faith, for sure.  Something to being able to think bigger than our ability to plan.  But I think there is also something to working hard. To showing up, every day, even when we don’t feel like it.  Especially when we don’t feel like it. I can’t expect my dreams to knock on my door just because they are worthy and I am busy working hard at other things. I have to work for them, to fight for them.

I don’t really like making resolutions.  Once I proclaim it, I can’t unsay it.  So if I fail, which I probably will, I can’t take it back.  Knowing this, I either don’t make resolutions, or I make them so vague that it’s practically impossible for even me to determine whether I have attained them.

I have also stayed away from the idea of selecting a “guiding word” for the year.  I have friends, a couple, who pray over and choose one each year.  They focus on it all year long.  For me, a wordsmith, this seemed too difficult.  Choose just one?  For the year? When there is so much I'd like to change?  And so many blessed words?

And yet, this year, after so much change, I found myself reevaluating. I looked at my life, at the things I don’t do that leave me disappointed at the end of every day.  I have a pile of reasons for them, many of them valid, but it’s never enough to make me feel better. 

I have stopped getting up early, I’m not reading, I’m not writing, and even when I do, it’s not with regularity and intent to do something greater.  I’m not as fit as I’d like to be, spiritually or physically.  When I consider all of these issues, at first, they seem unrelated.  But when I look a little closer, they are essentially the same.  I lack discipline.

When I was single and enjoying it, my dad described me as “committed to being non-committal,” and that was pretty accurate. I didn’t like making plans.  I wanted to be free.  Clearly, life has taken me a world away from that now.  There is much discipline in the way I cook and eat, the way we live, how we spend our money, for the most part, and the way we raise our children. My capacity for discipline is great, bordering on drudgery at times, but it’s all outwardly focused, and I’m suffering because of it.  And, I suspect, those I love are too.

 So this year, we all made resolutions in four categories: for learning, for our family, for our communities and for ourselves. They could be as direct and hard to attain as Mirabella's, "Stop crying for no reason," or as nonsensical and awesome as Emerie's "go to the summer." Mine were all variations on a theme; they all fit under the umbrella of discipline.  

I think, before, lacking discipline was my way of having at least a smidgen of spontaneity in my life—something that was unscripted or unplanned.  But without a plan for the small bit of time that is mine, it gets wasted.  It’s spent on Facebook or reading words others have penned instead of strengthening and reviving my body, filling my soul or spilling it for others.

It isn’t dramatic. It starts with an alarm clock, with getting up and moving, working at the parts I don’t like, spending energy on things I’m not  yet good at, writing when I’m uninspired.  It’s sweeping change made in small choices over many days. I can do better. And this year, I resolve to.

Whatever your big change, here’s to tiny steps in the right direction.

When Daniel and I were first falling in love, he said one of the things he admired about me was that I "wasn't afraid of anything."  Of course, this couldn't have been further from the truth, but I was ecstatic to hear that he thought that of me.  What he meant, he said, was that I didn't limit my future endeavors to what I had done in the past. This was only slightly less false.  

One of the reasons I chose Daniel is because he didn't limit me to what I had done or who I had been in the past.  Saturday marks eight years of togetherness for us, and I think one of the reasons we are still thrilled to be together is that we both knew the other was going to change and grow.  For the most part, I think, we have enabled each other to do so.  I hope this never stops.  It seems absolutely essential for really staying together over the course of what I hope will be a very long life.   

Over our time together, Daniel has always accepted and encouraged me, never laughed when I wanted to try something new.  He supported me as I struggled with the identity crisis of becoming a mother, helped me throughout my career and the dilemmas of working motherhood, encouraged me in my writing, pushed me to have the courage to start my business, and reminds me that he still sees me now that I'm a stay-at-home mom.  He is unwavering in all of this.

On our recent, blissful (if ill-timed) trip to Hawaii for our dear friends Mindy and Chris' wedding, we both had opportunities to let the other stretch. I had the honor of being a bridesmaid and Daniel was asked to officiate the wedding (no, he's never done this before, and no, I'm not sure what possessed them to choose him).  That said, he took his duties extremely seriously, consulting our pastor in Maryland and doing hours of research and days of preparation.  In the end, it was a very personal, intimate, funny, and touching ceremony that the bride and groom couldn't have been happier about. I couldn't have been prouder. (And if you had told me any of this would have occurred even six months ago, I would have laughed in your face.)  He did well enough that the groom's mother said, "I hear Dan is going to hang up his wedding garb-- that this is his last wedding.  Why's that?"  I informed her that this was also his first wedding, much to her surprise.  I tried to convince him that this might be a nice little weekend side gig for us-- he could do the ceremony, I could sing, we could have free date night at the reception-- but he wasn't biting.

The rest of our trip to Oahu was filled with brand-new experiences that left us bewildered, sore and breathless.  First of all, I wore a bikini for the first time since before having kids. Not because everything is exactly as I want it, but because I was in Hawaii with my husband and I wanted to.  I forced myself to accept myself.  That probably sounds silly, but it felt pretty brave to me. We went stand-up paddleboarding (if there is another sport that looks more boring but is more fun, I'd love to hear about it) and climbed a mountain just to see the view. We swam in a river and sat under Waimea Falls, drove aimlessly along the North Shore with the windows down and ate fried bananas at a farmer's market on the side of the road. We went snorkeling in the unfortunately-named Shark's Cove, where we swam with scores of tropical fish and sea turtles, and even jumped from a 25-foot lava rock formation into the sea.  We had never done any of these things before, and it would have been easy to laugh at each other instead of encourage.  Well, I should say, it would have been easy for me.  But we didn't.  We celebrated our sore muscles. We delighted in the new experiences; in seeing each other in a different light.

Though Daniel has never limited me, I have.  It's been too automatic for me to draw myself into a box. I'm a mother, I'm cautious, I'm creative; I'm not athletic or outdoorsy.  But on this trip I pushed past those barriers I've built and it was great.  I felt like the girl Daniel thought I was when he met  me. Granted, the things we did were small, but to me they were symbolic. They got us talking about the kind of people we want to be, the kind of couple we want to be, the kind of family we want to be.  Most importantly, they got us thinking outside of where we've been, and forward to where we might like to go.  Even if it's unfamiliar, even if it's scary.  Even if it's a really big hill to climb.