Love Lessons

 2/14/2025

Today the world seems to be on fire with love. Commercialized, dipped in chocolate, flowery, and fragrant love. Loud and noisy love. On fire love. Shiny. Polished. Expensive. Calculated.  

I'm thankful for the love that is none of those things. Because I stopped settling for that top and most outer layer of it, the love from a distance kind of love. 

Instead, I look to the love of the friends I'm so fortunate to have. The ones who show up for me when things are messy, emotional, tired, sweaty, stinky, sticky, unprepared, scared, and brave.  The friends who can get sassy and dressy and go out to a nice ticketed event but know the real me is happy in jeans and a t-shirt, with fake pearls and mismatched ribbon shoelaces. The ones who love me and show up for me despite what an inconvenience it is for them to do so. For friends who have shown me what it means to show up. To be present. The ones who make me feel like my broken heart is perfect in a world hellbent on making me feel the opposite. I'm reminded that there isn't "one person," who can "make," me feel anything. It's a lot of people, walking some paths with us when they can and others who walk the rest with us. Sometimes all together. Sometimes separately. And sometimes, sustaining me to walk specific paths and adventures alone. I'm thankful for those friends who endure my driving, music, last minute adventures, messy hair, and mismatched forks, spoons, cups, plates, and furniture. My mismatched life. The friends who love me in my winters and remind me that they have winters too. The friends who allow me to sit with them in their winters. Who call me because they just need someone to listen sometimes, too. The friends who tell me about the little and big things that break their hearts. The friends that text back when I send a "tell me something good," text. The friends who share 1/2 of their sticky peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the middle of nowhere and think of me when they see a new kind of gummy bears on the shelf. The friends who listen to me whine about the same things and believe in my ability to face difficult things. I'm thankful for the friends who show up for me when I am toeing hard things in my life because they can't imagine me failing or finishing such a big thing alone. They don't want me to call and tell them about it, they want to be IN it. I'm thankful for the ones that show up, in spite of what it may mean for them to do so. To stay when the world and other things also call them away. 

I look at my children for love. Each one, a sprout of love. Bright green with newness and each with love languages of their own. They give me something important to pour my love into and receive it back in a million different ways. Like helping me pull my cowboy boots off, laughing at me when I use words like, "Rizz," and "Aura," wrong. They give me honest feedback when I ask for outfit/shoe combo advice and share their heated blanket on the couch. They don't whine when I steal a bite of their cereal in the morning with groggy eyes. They offer to share the batter when they finish whipping up some cookies and quietly come up and hug me after dinner and tell me that they loved it. It's bringing the groceries in and suffering in the back of the car sitting closer to one another than they'd like for 4 hours just to go and hike some miles with me. They endure my playlists and send me, "Goodnight, I love you and miss you mama," texts in the middle of the week. They laugh at me when I cry about JJ dying on the Outer Banks and settle for tuna sandwiches or oven pizza for dinner when it's been a long day for me. They make me necklaces and earrings and mow the lawn. They find pretty rocks for me on hikes and send me reels of puppies and seals. 

Regardless of the WHO, whether I'm thinking about the love of my friends or the love of my children, what makes it true, authentic, palpable and resonating love for me is that they all demonstrate these qualities: Presence, Time, Proximity, Thoughtfulness, and Plans. They are all relatively quiet and somewhat bland to the world's eye. And, if I blinked it would be easy to miss them. But, when I take a minute to truly think about the "LOVE," I need in my life, it's all of those things mismatched. Woven together into a tapestry of a meaningful and connected life. A healthy life. A soul-feeding, nourishing one. 

Bouquets of flowers on a special holiday for love are beautiful and nice. But, so is a "Look at this 4-leaf clover I found in the yard, you can have it." And, "These chocolate brownies are the best you've ever made," with chocolate teeth and sticky fingers. On an ordinary day. Doing ordinary things. Nothing grand or loud. Not showy. Real. Pure.Together. Right beside me. Because love DOES. And my favorite kind appears dull. Mundane. Ordinary. Mismatched. So today and tomorrow and next week..that's all I'm willing to settle for. 

 

Words From One Squishy Broken Heart

2/12/2025

When I was 14, my mom made me volunteer all summer at the hospital. Most kids volunteered 1 day/week. We couldn't afford summer camp or family vacations and she worked all week. I was too young for a job. She signed me up to volunteer at the hospital 5 days/week all day. All summer long. 

I delivered flowers and cards to patients. I sat with patients in the cancer center and kept them company while they were getting chemo. I helped people sit up to eat, and I took family members from the lobby to patient rooms and back again. 

It was the summer between middle school and high school for me. I was overweight, lacked self-confidence, didn't play sports, read a lot of books, and spent a lot of time in my room by myself drawing, reading, listening to music, and dreaming. 

I came home crying every day about the patients I saw. Every single day broke my heart. I will always remember what my mom said to me one day after being a little annoyed with me for crying again. She said, "Kim, this experience is so good for you. You have always had such a tender heart and one day, the world will harden it, and you won't be so sensitive anymore."

I went to nursing school and the world didn't harden my heart. As a new RN, I remember going into the rooms of my pediatric patients in the middle of the night and picking up the babies that were awake. Many of them wouldn't have parents with them because they had to work the next day, or they couldn't get a ride to the hospital. Or, they had more children at home. Regardless, I would go in and pick them up and sing to them in their rooms. 

I still cry at the thought of the first pediatric patient I lost. When I came back to work and heard he had passed away after he had been getting chemo for months for osteosarcoma. When I would take him a popsicle for his mouth sores from the chemo and radiation, I remember he looked at me and told me I was an angel. It still wrecks me. 

I remember the first patient we couldn't save in the Children's ED who came in unresponsive after choking at home on a hotdog. I will never forget him. Or his mama. 

I cry for strangers. At sappy songs, when I hear people talk about someone they love, or hear them talk unfiltered and honestly about what is hard for them, the circumstances they have overcome. 

I went into 9th grade and started high school a slimmer version of myself, with confidence that was somehow different than the kind my peers had. Still a nerd. Still introverted. Still not athletic. Timid. Hopeful. Looking around and seeing others. Smiling. Accepting. Driven. 

Looking back on that summer, and that specific conversation with my mama, I'd say it was a pretty life-altering experience for me. I saw the power of my squishy heart. The power of sitting with someone in the most scary moments of their lives, just being present. I delivered the cards and saw the impact of such a small and seemingly insignificant thing for a patient alone, in an empty room. I saw their eyes light up when I brought the flowers in and read the card so they wouldn't have to squint. 

It's difficult to have such a squishy heart. People take advantage of people with squishy hearts. But, at 41, I don't know any other way to be. I don't have any control over my squishy heart and the connection it has to the water in my eyes. 

I'm happiest when I can do the giving, the serving, the helping, connecting, the seeing and being present. And, my writing always seems to carry me to a prayer. 

Dear God, when you send me someone this time, could you just please send them with a squishy heart that the world never hardened? Could you send me a man that's strong enough and confident enough to show it? Someone who values the little things? Presence? Words? Handmade cards? Someone who sees me and has been hoping and praying you made a woman with a squishy heart too? There's a lot of darkness, sadness, sickness, trouble, doubt, and fear in this world. I pray for someone who doesn't want wealth and riches. I pray for a man with a squishy heart that leads him with purpose, passion, and is restless and stirring to get busy helping. Then, I pray that you send US. Until then, I will continue to show up, to seek others in ordinary moments that need a little light. And, I pray, having faith that you are going before me and lining all the things, moments, people, places, and circumstances up just as they should be. You know who needs my squishy heart the most. Meanwhile, I will look to the left and the right and see who is on my path now. In ordinary places. Needing little tiny extraordinary things. Because the one thing I know, is what it feels like to use a squishy heart. Give me patience. Strengthen my heart but please, keep it squishy so I can see, feel, and be moved by connection, strangers, words, music, and moments. I now know it's a divine gift of mine, this broken and squishy heart. And so, I just want to say thank you. A squishy heart makes a full life and I know the hard times have led me right here. In prayer. On my knees. Looking up. Having faith. Understanding the assignment. It's your move, God. 

Amen.