LOVE

I can't actually hang out with you without hating you by the end.  Also I will probably never stop listening to this song.

This is so homewrecker.

Tree Rings

Maybe a little, maybe a lot.

Maybe a four year old princess with a box of crayons, glitter on her fingernails, and flowers in her hair.

Maybe a seven year old girl with a blue ink stain on her favorite t-shirt who could read an entire Harry Potter book in a day.

Maybe a nine year old who was already sitting on a bench with Phyllis, eating ice cream and planning wild adventures.

Maybe a quiet twelve year old nobody afraid to talk in class, realizing that self-assurance would be a lot more difficult from here on out.

Maybe a skinny fourteen year old dancer waiting to catch up to the rest of the girls her age and wild about a boy she was barely even friends with.

Maybe a sixteen year old blogger impatient for her first kiss and her driver's license, eating peanut butter sandwiches, and sharing coke and m&ms with a boy who would never quite relinquish his hold on her.

Maybe they're all stacked like tree rings inside of an nostalgic eighteen year old who never really hated glitter.  

A girl with callused feet and a blistered heart, impatient fingers and an impossible dream.  A girl who is far too familiar with the sharp, lingering sting of rejection and is afraid that she will never be enough.  A girl with deep roots and tentative branches, who will never stop looking for miracles.

A girl who never lost touch with with that four year old princess who believed in magic.

It won't be long now

There are seven different colors of paint on my bedroom walls.  The downstairs bathroom has been halfway finished for two years now and we've been meaning to replace the broken light in the family room since I was in middle school.

A big part of me is worried that I will never even finish this blog post because I come from a noble tradition of beginners with a distinct knack for never finishing.

See, my daddy is a dreamer who is stuck behind a desk so that I can have a car to drive to work every day and my sister can spend 15 hours a week playing the cello.

My dad has a hundred apps that will never be built because by the time he gets home from work every day he is sick of coding.

He has a novel written in his head that will never live and breathe on the printed page because developing novels are a needy bunch and he already has six children to take care of.

But someday is always just around the corner and my dad has never stopped talking to me about his self-sufficient greenhouse, his ocean-front property with the private boat dock, or his lawn chair on the beach.

And despite the unfinished basement, I've never stopped believing in his plans.

Phyllis once called me the Believer and I never realized how true it was until she put it into words.

I believe in the future.

I do believe in miracles.

And even though it seems impossible, I honestly believe that one day we'll arrive and all of our dreams will begin to unfold and we'll finally catch up to our elusive green lights.

Phyllis and the Cardinal and Peyton and the Golden Girl will go out to lunch in quaint french cafes and my dad and I will sit on our lawn chairs and watch the waves.  My map of the world will fill to the brim with been-there-pins

and I'll finish this blog post.