Farytales

The REAL ending to the fairytales we grew up on. Thanks Katie!

Walt Disney was a great man! He created the most epic fairytales of all time. Cinderella, Sleeping beauty, Snow White; just to name a few. I remember being a little girl and wanting to be The Little Mermaid. Yes, on occasion I would wrap my mother’s dresses over my tiny little legs and pretend I didn’t have legs to walk. I would sing the famous , ahhh ah ahhhh ah ahhhh ah ahhhhh ahh (keep singing ) ahhh ah ahhhh ah ahhhh ah ahhhhh ahh , until Ursula (my big brother), would get tired of the act and send a forceful pillow straight to my head and make me cry to my madre, pleading she’d do something about my brothers inadequate behavior. In all my life I thought love was going to be exactly how I saw it in these marvelous movies. After many failed relationships and now a good marriage, I realize that love is far from the tale. Love is wonderful, but it is not at all a fairytale. Love comes in many shapes and forms and sizes. Not one size fits all. Find out what love really is to you in a deeper sense and not this fluff that we get fed through the media of what love is “supposed to be” . You’ll find that you can be much happier when you don’t have a misconstruct view of what love really is. I am sure that our friend Walt had no intention to screw us up! And yes these movies depict a fraction of what love can be, but it should not define it.

What does love mean to you? Find out and be happy.

Love

This whole week I’ve been thinking about relationships. I’ve been thinking of the ups and the downs that we experience and all the different stages of love. From the very first stage that is full of the butterflies, the passion, and the can’t get enough of yous’. To the, I’m comfortable enough now to let go a little and be more of myself around you. To the “I’m so used to you I feel like I don’t know you” stage. To the falling in love all over again. It’s a big ol’ circle that must be completed in order to keep love alive.

I’ve been challenged in the past few months with a family friend that wants to end a 10 year marriage. What happens to love then? I’ve been thinking about it a lot especially now that I have my husband and a child on the way. It’s scary to think that people you never thought would part do. What happens to love then? I am absolutely in no way shape or form an expert on relationships, let alone marriage since Doug and I are only 1 year and 8 months into this whole Tango, BUT here’s what I do believe; Love is a CHOICE. The moment you started dating someone it was because of a specific something or other that made you happy. Something that was so strong at the beginning that you could not even go an hour without thinking about this person. What happens to love? In most cases the world happens, but it is our choice to let it die. When you commit your life to someone you are promising that person that you are going to love them, respect them and make them happy. In my marriage, I know there is trouble in paradise the minute I start questioning why Doug isn’t doing something nice for me. Why is he not treating me like the “Queen” I am? (Drama, that is! Ha) Why is he not, why is he not, why is he not, I’ll think. Right there is the solution to my problem. If I take a deeper look, I see that when I’m so worried about what he’s not doing for me, I am completely neglecting what I AM NOT DOING FOR HIM. I made the choice to marry him because I want to love on him and make HIM happy. I should not be interested in “what have you done for me lately” (Thank you Janet Jackson for those lyrics). Let HIM worry about that on his own. I should worry about making him feel loved, respected and happy in his love language not mine. I have to be so interested in him that I know his love language, but at the same time communicating what is mine to him, so that when he chooses to love on me, it will be loudly heard. I guess what I am trying to get at here is that I now DO NOT BELIEVE IN the “I fell out of love” stage. That is an easy escape from the choice you made at the very beginning of the relationship. You cannot fall out of love because love is a choice. So chose to love the one your with and learn the way they need to be loved and appreciated. I guarantee that the minute you forget about what’s not being done for you and you do for them, the reward of love coming back to you will be tenfold! This applies in all relationships so it’s not just for the married folk. You can do this with your sister, father, and friend. I chose to love today. Do you?

I got an email today with a poll from different kids about what they think love means. Check it out!

'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' (what an image)

Karen - age 7

'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.'

Karl - age 5

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.'

Mark - age 6

'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love..'

Rebecca- age 8

Laughter Cures All

My husband and I were bickering about something so trivial the other day and we, being the “passionate” people we are, when positioned on our side of the argument, it is very hard for us to let IT go. Even when 10 minutes into it we have both forgotten what it really was we were having a heated conversation about! We usually need divine intervention to resolve any problem, God bless us both for being so stubborn. BUT in the heat of this very important argument (knobs or handles in our new kitchen mind you, VERY important stuff, ha!) he fumbled on his words as he was trying to make a very stern and manly statement, and could not get words out correctly. I, of course started laughing so hard I was crying because of how funny he sounded. Well should I say, how funny we sounded arguing about something so petty! After the laughter concealed our fiery argument I realized how laughing can heal soooo much. I also go to thinking of why we were even bickering about something so silly when there are people in the world that would not care about a knob or a handle. No, they have more pressing issues to worry about, like having some actual food to put in their stomachs.

My brother always tells me that it is our human nature to be so wrapped up in our little world that we lose sight of others and their struggles. He said, “We are always complaining we have no shoes when our neighbor has no FEET. “

The next time you’re caught in the fiery passion of an argument such as this, ask yourself, is it worth my time and effort to be so upset about this? How many blessings can I count today, that counterbalance everything that I think I’m without?