Our home is a collection of nostalgia. The walls are covered in paintings from childhood, collections of random memories and posters of our favorite movies. Our music resonates up the stairs, melodies of our parents collections mixed with our own. Our closet of a home is quiet sometimes, but it is rich with our lives before each other and richer with our life we have just begun. The weight of our lives lately is wearing us thin. The world is beckoning us to a change of pace, to new people, new work, just...new. The daily prayer is the strength to make it through the work week. But, coming home to our home, makes it somewhat worthwhile.
J and I got a break this last week. We went to Catalina Island for my niece's graduation/vacation. It was so unbelievable to take J to all the places I grew up. Part of my heart felt like, if I kept looking, I might find my mom living there. I know it is a crazy thought, but I kept imaging running into her there, among the familiar. I wanted so badly for Justin to be able to see my life before he was around, when I took him there, I was taking him to my childhood with me. Now it feels as if...he were there all along in a strange way. There were still markings that I remembered there, from when I was little. It was like going home, the town covered with nostalgia.
These pieces of my life, before and after, meeting each other. As Justin and I seek out this new part of our life, we do not know what to expect. Our hearts weigh heavy with the unknown. There are so many things we could choose to burden us so easily. My prayer is that I can support him regardless, and seek the Lord the way he needs me to. I am learning to appreciate so greatly his determination and vigor in everything he does. He is the most driven man I know. Most importantly, he desperately loves our Father, and can in return love me in ways I never knew were possible. As we grow together, my hope is that we leave pieces of us along the way. One day we will come back to this town and smile as we remember our memories here.
"Time, always time, on my mind. So pass me by, I'll be fine, just give me time."
Sometimes life moves so fast you want to pause a little while and remember, but when you do it catches up with you. And there you are, left stumbling over your memories and falling into your future. It is like being pulled in the waves, it could be bliss, or it could be deadly, all depending on how you swim. I am feeling a lot less in control than I would like, and far less graceful than I care to admit.
There are moments I could just watch Justin, I could just stare at him and take him in. When a million birds sing in the morning as if they powered the sun to rise, that is my favorite time to watch Justin sleep so peacefully. I usually wake up in time to see the sunlight warm his face. Those slow motion moments are too far in between. But, I carry them with me all day. A collection of nostalgia I have already begun to create with him.
One day, when we are old, I will think back and remember our life together. All the pieces, moments, memories, in my mind will carry me through to the next ones, and I will be able to die peacefully knowing that if I did anything with my life, at least I loved him. He carries the pieces of me I leave behind and loves me in return. If someday he decided not to love me, at least has those pieces of me. That is all I could ask for, because the Lord is in every piece I leave behind.
For now, we both illuminate.
