Holding A Place~

Two years ago...

I was making frantic phone calls between Fenton and Bay City, trying to locate lost earrings. I was attempting last minute toe nail painting while half naked in a church basement. I was sweating through Lola's hot August wedding in a floor length bridesmaid dress, drinking mimosas on the bus with my Busia, and pretending to polka at her reception. Followed by more wedding wine and cake and hoopla. And then followed by the best decision ever...going out to the bar, running into Jack, and forever changing the course of my life.

Two years. My life seems marked by that night - life before Jack and now life with Jack. Two years later and Jack is still the best thing in my life. I love to look back at this blog and see the things that I wrote the morning after the wedding, the night after we met for drinks at the local dive bar, the perfect day where I already knew that I loved him. It is sweet to sit here and remember all those things and then look at us today - happy and peaceful, sharing a home and a life, engaged and looking forward to the birth of our child this fall. It is even more amazing to look further back in my blogging and remember all of the angst and the errors and the drama- and to be so thankful for it, because it all was an imperfect journey that brought me to this moment.

Jack is literally the best man that I know. He is real and honest and totally comfortable with who he is. He is so clever and funny and always the first person I want to share all my stories with. He understands me and makes me feel like everything I say is equally important - unless the Tigers are on, of course. No one is perfect. But despite this flaw...I just feel so incredibly blessed that God put both of us on this path that at first seemed so awful, only for us to meet up down that path years later - both better, wiser people - and be able to understand each other and create this new life that is unique to us. I found this poem a few months ago that makes me think of us - and of this kind of crazy journey that brought us here. I feel like this is the best thing we do for each other - every day, actively working on making a place in the world for each other. At the end of every day, no matter what insanity I run into - I get to come home and hold Jack. And he gets to come home to me. Lucky us.


Holding A Place

I will hold a space for you in which to be: My gift to you.
A place in the world beside me.
I will honor that space and protect it.
And if you hold a place for me I will accept and value it.
We two can do one another a great service here on earth while we are alive.
We can give one another shelter.
We cannot change the wind or the rain or devastation of storms.
We cannot make what will happen not happen.
But we can provide a feeling of safety in each other’s arms.

-Tian Dayton