My Fantastic Best Friend's Birthday!

Today is Kavyn's birthday!!!!!! :D I'm so happy for her!! We celebrated yesterday and it was great! And pretty much this post in pointless, except to make her blush a little! Honestly, I don't know what else to say! I blog about her a LOT so you already know that I love her to bits and pieces and that she's amazing and brave and beautiful and wonderful, and if you don't go read those posts! I'm so glad to have her in a my life. I truly love her and appreciate her more than I can say. She's the best BFFAE a girl could ask for. :) Much love and happiness for her today. <3

Bravery

So, I once defined beauty, and I decided to take a crack at defining bravery. When most people think of bravery as a knight in shining armor riding his white horse into battle (or nowadays, I soldier in camo driving a tank into battle), and while yes that takes incredible amounts of bravery I think that there are many different forms of being brave. So here are a few examples of my definition of bravery.

Admitting you need help is very brave. Admitting you have a problem is brave. Even braver is seeking the help and trying your hardest to help yourself. There are so many people who cowardly hide their pain and issues inside, when really they should just let someone know and let themselves free of being trapped inside themselves with their issues.

Being yourself is powerfully brave. Not allowing others to sway you in their judgments of you and their opinions of who you are is brave. Those who truly love you appreciate you for who you are and for who you aren't and encourage you gently toward who you are to become, they don't judge you or hate on you for being who you are now and moving toward who you are becoming.

Feeling good about yourself is brave. In American culture if you don't hate yourself or at least some part of yourself there is supposedly something wrong with you, you're self-centered and prideful and conceited and a bad person. When that isn't true. It's brave to feel good about yourself and accept the things you hate about yourself and to love yourself or at least pieces of yourself.

Living take courage. Taking breaths, waking up every morning, getting out of bed, getting dressed, going to work, taking care of yourself and loved ones, it all takes bravery and courage. Sometimes more than others. How much easier would it be to just let yourself slip away into the Lord's comfort? So much, but living and doing your best at it takes true courage.

Doing your best is brave. It's simple and spineless to stop trying to give up and sit by the side of your life's path. It's brave to stand up and keep walking when you no longer have strength. It's brave to drag yourself along when your legs give out. It's brave to lift up your hand to the person whose path will correspond with yours just when you need them. (Just as God intended it.) It's brave to look down the road and know that someday you will get to that point because you will "keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things," as Walt Disney put it.

Helping others is brave. Giving someone your hand, your shoulder to cry on, your arms to hold them, your eyes to cry with them, your heart to ache with them is courageous. Telling them your experiences to help them is brave.

Trying new things is brave. You don't know what that exotic piece of fruit or mysterious piece of meat is going to taste like, so putting it in your mouth is brave. But trying a new job or school or town or neighborhood or idea or blog or challenge is brave. You don't know how it will affect you and your life, and facing that unknown is brave. Very brave.

Trust is brave. Not stuff like trust-falls, and other stuff you see coworkers doing on TV shows and commercials. True trust is hard and sometimes painful and so brave. Leaning on someone else and telling them your secrets and hopes and fears and dreams is brave and sometimes so hard.

Love is heroic. Giving someone part of your heart and hoping, praying, and trusting they won't shatter it or leave it out in the rain to catch cold or simply hand it back is incredibly brave. It's brave to keep loving someone after you've hurt them, or after they've hurt you. Even though you've given those people a piece of you, you can still feel that piece they're holding on to. It's easy and cowardly to just walk away and take your heart back from someone you love, it's brave to put yourself on the line again and keep loving them and give them another chance. (Disclaimer: Sometimes giving someone another chance is just stupid, not brave. You have to be the judge of that for yourself, here's for hoping you aren't stupid! Hehe!)

This is a suit of armor in Disneyland, he's pretty brave to just stand there. Hehe!

It just sounded like fun to put in a picture of him :)

That's my Mom! She's struggled through most of her life and you would never know it. Her strength and bravery is quiet and peaceful. Her courage is lost to words. Her experiences are inexplicable. Her strength is unfathomable. She's a beautiful, brave, wonderful woman.

This is Rae's Phill. He's been deployed twice, leaving his wife and children behind to go off to the horrors of war, not knowing whether or not he would come back to them. Not only that he's picked up his family and moved to a new place about every 3 years. Including in August, when they'll move to Texas.

This is Phill's Rae. She's gone through everything with him, always by his side, always supporting him. Not only that she's courageously raised 3 children, while go through personal struggles. Rae's gone through an inexplicable amount of challenges, that I've only begun to fathom, and bravely borne them and struggled through them, trying so hard to move forward past them. While trying to drag herself down her path of life, she's picked up others along the way, forgetting her own struggles and helping those she's found in their challenges. Rae has handled her challenges with equal helpings of bravery, beauty and sweetness. Which is truly admirable.

This is my Kavyn. You all know that I love her and she's my best friend. What you may not know is that she has placed her already rocky path of life right next to my broken and often hidden one, and not only does she leave her path to let me cry on her shoulders, and to comfort me as I try to be brave (often failing), but she picks me up and carries me as far as she can. Something else you don't know is that she feels lucky to do so and asks for nothing in return. Completely selflessly she listens to me whine and watches me try and trip and often fail, and just tells me that she loves me too and to keep going because I'm stronger and braver than I give myself credit for. She is so brave to love me. And so brave to keep going and living and fighting the fight she's been handed. She's not got it easy, but she handles it at her very best which is all anyone can ask. This girl's a special one, so watch out world, she's going to change you. Even if it's only one person at a time.

Prince Charmings

So after my post about Princesses and their Prince Charmings I was asked about what Prince Charming was doing before he met his princess. Now that's a great question to which I answered, "You are the princess!" meaning that the role of not just waiting and looking but discovering yourself and finding what you love. To the question asker the answer was not sufficient though. Which inspired this article. So Prince Charming didn't just run around looking for his Princess. He was busy too!

Ready for a super similar list of Prince Charming's and what they were doing before they found their Princesses?! Good!

Aladdin didn't just sit around trying to find Jasmine. He tried to provide for himself and Abu the best he could. He was helping others (the orphan children) and trying to improve his situation. By being so giving and helpful he found and wooed Jasmine!

Prince Eric wasn't swimming to try and find a mermaid, he was learning to sail and rule his kingdom. Then disaster struck and he was saved by Ariel. He was tricked along the way by Ursula, but he figured it out and got the Happily Ever After he was looking for.

Phillip wasn't riding his horse through the forest just to find Aurora, he was getting away from life, relaxing and working out. And then he stumbled across her. When he was captured by Maleficent all hope seemed lost, but he saved his girl and spent the rest of their days together!

John Smith didn't go to America to find a Native American and nearly die for loving her. He went to have an adventure, to discover new things, and he ended up finding his true love.

Hercules didn't find Philoctetes to save Meg from the water guardian and fall in love with her. He found Philoctetes and worked really hard to please his family and be with those who loved him and find his place in the world. Falling for Meg was just a perk.

Flynn Ryder didn't convince Rapunzel to come with him to end up marrying her and become a Prince. He convinced her to come with him because she knew too much and he needed that crown back! It just ended up that they fell in love and saved each other in the end.

Prince Naveen didn't go to New Orleans to be turned into a frog and turn Tiana into a frog and thereby fall in love with her. He went to New Orleans to find a rich man's daughter and woo her into marrying him and thereby support himself with her funds, regardless of love. And then he found Tiana, learned the power of work and made his own fortune and happiness with her.

"I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream." (Not as perfect as the other lyric, but Prince Phillip sings it)

Valentines Day!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!

I've decided this may be my favorite holiday. Not for the romance and the flowers and candy, but for the opportunity to show and express your love for the people you love most. I love the secrecy of surprises you get to give those you love. I love feeling loved, but more loving others. I love telling and showing friends and family I love them and seeing their eyes get watery or their lips crack into a smile. I love making frilly pink and red things and giving them to people. I love seeing the couples trying to do cute things for each other. I love that my Dad doesn't give my mom flowers on Valentines Day because it's too expected and surprises her with flowers random days of the year when she won't have a clue! I love that my Dad's Valentine for me was half of a $5 foot-long (my favorite kind--Chicken Bacon Ranch!!) and half a cookie. I love that my Mom spent an hour making me a beautiful card and filling it with confetti hearts. I love knowing that all the way in Guatemala my sister read the Valentine I snuck into her suitcase. (My brother will get his when he gets back, I didn't get the chance to sneak his in his suitcase!) Most of all I love the few things I don't dare post. Those very close to me know those few things and know that they made me so happy I cried and am again.

Yes, it is hard to be single on Valentines Day, but it doesn't lessen or dampen the brilliant glow that loving others and being loved by others makes me feel. Yes, it's hard to work on Valentines night and see all the couples, but the tips were great! (Even if it was because they felt sorry for me!) But I love this beautiful holiday. Maybe enough to call it my favorite. I'm not quite sure yet.

"If you live to be 100, I want to live to be 100 minus one day so I never live without you." Winnie the Pooh

"I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it." Audrey Hepburn