Bravely wrap your arms around all of it.

Life. According to Mr. Webster, life is the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body. I don't like that definition, at all. I find it rather morbid actually, to think that one could look at life and analyze it and still see it as just a quality separating us from the ground. Isn't life more? Don't you think there's something greater that weaves our days together? I think we're all searching for our own definition of life, trying to make sense of our own two feet and I think that's one of the hardest things. Living in a world where you can't love those who hate, where are we? Love always wins. A world where women are raped and disrespected, children go hungry, families fall apart, babies are murdered without a chance to even take there first breath, a world where cancer kills, alcohol kills, guns kill, and words kill and yet we're still told that tomorrow is a new day seeming as though that will make all the difference. But it never does, the news still effortlessly makes it's way through our households every night at 6 p.m. Ya know, half the time I drive myself into a frenzy over things I can't really control. Why did he have to do that to me, why is he a jerk, why is she so mean to me, why am I not good enough for some people, why did this happen to me, why don't they care, why won't this happen, why did I do that, and why am I stuck here in the middle of it all?

Life is simply crazy, one big vat of unanswerable questions. And then there are those hearts that make my own beat a little stronger. I don't understand why some hearts decide to grace my path and choose to stay there, right beside me through it all, and so I mostly just stand in awe thankful that they do. The ones who are always there for me, the ones who I don't see very often yet still know me like we see eachother every day, that don't care if crying is all the talking I can do, who teach me new things about myself, who let me be Lahni(which entails some craziness), who love me unconditionally, and who add a little more meaning to the word life. The ones who do Chinese fire drills with me at every red light, who stick their heads out the car window with me and sing at the top of their lungs, who listen to my "slightly strange" music with the volume to the max and the windows down, who will get out of the car with me and have dance offs in the middle of a semi-empty parking lot at night, who will talk with me for hours and never run out of things to say, who dance with me to Jai-Ho while I'm driving and then get reasonably mad at me for almost rear-ending the car in front of us, who will belt out some Celine Dion to the world of Cynthiana with me, who camp-out with me in antartic temperatures and don't get mad at me when I go inside, and the ones who are always adding a new adventure to my life.

Then come the hope filled wonders of this life like my sister getting married to her love this summer. Like the elderly woman at the grocery store the other day who told me she got married at 16 and was still married, that is a beautiful thing I hope I can say one day(except the 16 part, I'm already past that now. But 17 is a good age,right? Haha, just kidding). A kiss or a hug that lifts you off your feet, those are the best. The sun shining and long drives down windy country roads, just me, my thoughts, the music and beauty all around me, there's nothing better.

Our Lives are all about dreaming and reaching. I have so many dreams that I want to reach and most of them are on this bucket list I created. Most of those items can be wrapped up into one word and that word is happiness. My friends and I were sitting in a parking lot in my car the other night having a "question circle" together and a few of us were asked, "If we could have one thing, what would it be"? I shouldn't have been suprised that all three of our answers were "to be happy", because it's so natural for all of us to want that. It's what we are constantly and fervently trying to attain at all costs. My "happy" lies within the things that bring me joy today but also the things I know will bring me joy in the future like falling in love with a man that I will love fiercely all the days of life. Things like adopting a precious child and creating a beautiful family with the man my heart will one day belong to. Mostly I just want life and I don't want Mr. Webster's definition. Life isn't a quality, but a mystery we all have to step inside and choose to embrace. In this never ending quest for the fullest, most beautiful life possible, I am realizing that life is messy and scary and amazing, and that you have to bravely wrap your arms around all of it.