the good and the bad

This year has been...different for us. If you're close to us, you know what I'm talking about. Things. Things that I've chosen to leave within the walls of our home and not splashed about in cyberspace. 

I've shared basically just the good here. Which is why my posting has been the most sparse it has ever been. And I've thought a lot about that - the onesidedness of this blog. It's not fair really. I post all these happy, smiling, country-trotting pictures, but behind the scenes, things haven't been super awesome every day. A whole lot of hard happened this year. Unmet expectations. Desperately wanted, but unfulfilled hopes. A seemingly permanent presence of patience has permeated the year. 

But when I really sit down and think about it, I feel like all the good was really good as well. And it's here. It's recounted. When I look back, I don't really want to remember the days that weren't awesome.

Instead, I want to remember a tiny Lou, up on tip toes, peering over the balcony to see a Hawaiian paradise below. I want to remember the look in my baby's eyes when she reached the top of her first lighthouse, the wind wrapping itself around her and whipping her hair in all its wild, curly glory. I want to remember the backyard - the stress and the sweat and the unrelenting obstacles, the playing and the napping. I want to remember that our once tiny baby started talking in adult sentences, ones that caused instant belly laughs. I want to remember both babies' victories - preschool, tumbling, full-fledged reading, pony tails, full conversations, giving up the binky and bottle, pretending at all new highs.

I want to remember the look on the girls' faces when the garage door roared to life every night, the mad scramble to "hide" from Daddy, his pretend searching for them, and the joy on all three faces when they found each other. I want to remember the almost constant traveling we did - here and there and everywhere (Hawaii, Washington, D.C., North Carolina, California, Bryce Canyon, Yellowstone - twice). With our two tiny loves in tow. I want to remember that this is the year I really gave my design business a go - and that I finished the year motivated to do, and be, more. I want to remember that this is the year I started editing again, and that when I did, it was like a sleepy part of my soul was awakened. I want to remember what it was like to feel the editing gears of my mind start churning again, like a dusty machine slowly roaring back to life. I want to remember the profile of Jess' face against the moving landscape, seen from the passenger seat of so many road trips, miles and miles of road sliding around the wheels of our ever faithful RAV. 

This blog serves many purposes for me, but overall, I want this blog to be a space that my girls and my family can look back on and see simply that we lived. And that we lived happy. I think it is assumed that there are bad days in every life. There are bad weeks. And those weeks can stretch very quickly into months. But laced throughout is the good. And if this blog serves as nothing else but a reminder of the good that we have - and we have so much - it will be enough.

I'm holding on to the idea of 2014 with all my heart. To the hope it offers - renewal, change, good things to come. I'm hoping that our patience will finally win out in so many aspects this year. I'm hoping that 2014 will be less of a struggle than this year has been. But if it's not, if the battle continues, so be it. Because we're stronger for it, and our joys and happiness are more poignant. 

Welcome 2014. Bring it.