Unexpected Reunion

This Christmas season has been a real blessing. I have been able to spend a lot of time with family and with my siblings, our family getting bigger, relatives coming home from abroad, and others moving away, there is a lot of changes happening. Because of all this it has been amazing to be able to spend quality time with my family this last week and should be the same next week too. Family is where home really is. It isn't a place but the people that make the place feel like love because the love is real. So anyways, this week I can't really say that I feel like I have done a whole lot. I mostly help my mom out, sleep a fair bit, and then spend my afternoons and evenings with the rest of my family.

However, one of our traditions around Christmas time is baking poppy-seed bread with an orange glaze and then delivering them to our family and friends along with caroling to them. If for nothing else I travel back home to New Hampshire every Christmas for that bread (just kidding... kind of). But seriously, it is delicious! One of the families we decided to deliver to, we met through wrestling in high school. I wasn't the biggest kid on the team but I had spunk. I would practice with their son Alex a lot and we became friends. They aren't LDS like we are but they are an amazing family with strong values and relationships. Since I love them a lot, we decided to bake them one too. When I drove over and knocked on their door, they were surprised to see me and invited me right in. After hugs and handshakes from everyone, we began to catch up, swap stories, and the time just flew. It wasn't until I got a call from my dad that I realized how much time actually had passed, excused myself, they thanked me for the gift, and I was on my way. But it was so nice to catch up. To be able to see familiar faces and see how happy they were.

When I think about my relationships, I want them to be like that... an unexpected reunion. I think I will know when I found the woman I want to really get to know when it feels for both of us that when we first meet that it was like meeting an old friend. I feel like if I met someone like that I would be willing and would want to hold onto them forever. In the end, I know that I have always wanted two things in life: I want to be the best future husband and father as I could be and I want to marry my best friend. And if I had to guess what she would be like... She would be as crazy as me and we would be crazy about each other. We would make each other laugh, she would be witty and sarcastic, but if she truly was like me, she would be a dreamer. And I would do anything to help us live our dreams together... I don't do so well with distance but I am trying.

Not that I want distance between me and the ones I love, but distance can be a good measure of the trust and strength of a relationship. The thing about distance is it either does one of two things: the flame of a relationship reacts only one of two ways to the breeze of distance. If the flame is too small it is extinguished. But if the flame is large enough the air will give the fire strength and it will grow. And if I throw another analogy into the mix, I can't let my fears get to me. Sometimes I am afraid that people won't accept me so I hold so tightly that they can't breathe and so they push away. It is like holding a bird; you need to hold on only tightly enough that it can't fly away and it will feel safe. Still, I think that is the feeling I want it to feel like, as strange as it sounds, an unexpected reunion.