Lessons in Letting Go

"Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it."

-Ann Landers

I knew it'd be hard to say goodbye to Sam & Davy but I hadn't anticipated it being this difficult. I have two little kitten-sized holes in my heart now. They were our first fosters & we nursed them back to health. It was amazing to see their recovery.

It's such a special, precious gift to teach them love & joy. People are cruel & neglectful to animals, a behavior, a lack of compassion beyond my comprehension so we save these babies & shower them in love & care, teaching them there is good in this world.

We had to let them go so they could show off what they learned & bring joy to another's life. We had to let them go so we could save more lives. 

Fostering is an exercise in love, a grinch-like expanding of your heart, growing larger than you thought possible. Despite the sorrow of farewell, I know there will be more hellos, more little ones to rescue. I have to keep this empty spot in my heart & my home to welcome them.

Thanks to Rescued Pets Movement for this opportunity & the life-saving journeys.

I learn to let go.

Trying New Things: XOVoxBox

"The best things in life are free. The second best things are very, very expensive."

-Coco Chanel

I recently received my first VoxBox! I AM SUPER OBSESSED. I freaking love free stuff so when Tiffany recommended this to me, I had to jump on board. I signed up last fall but with the hub-bub of the wedding going on, I forgot about it. But no longer. FREE. STUFF. Seriously, look at all that shit. I'm pretty obsessed with the John Frieda Beach Blonde Collection (hello, blonde-beach lover here) & the Colgate Optic White products appeal to my dental vanity.

I love the Tide Pods because they're a product I'd normally never purchase myself so I'm excited to try them out. 

Everyone. Sign up for Influenster. Get free shit.

Touching the Sun

"Everyone forgets Icarus also flew." 

-Jack Gilbert

My life is a shearing away of the unessential me, the delving deeply into the core of my being & sloughing off the behaviors & speeches which don't coincide to the fundamental Christine. I've lost so many friends over the course of my life, some more jarringly than others, through faults of theirs, through faults of mine, through the passage of time, & going forward, all I can do is remain true to myself & what I identify with as a life worth living.

I might crash in my folly to reach the sun, but I will come closer than any of these earth-bound cowards.

Burning

photo from here.

"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth." 

-W. Faulkner

I cannot condone the rioting but I also cannot condemn it. I will never know what it's like to fear for my child's life every time he leaves the house because his skin is dark. I will never understand the immediate racial prejudice received from having dark skin. It will never be my life experience. I empathize as best I can with the rage an entire group of people feel because they've been made victims again and again and again, in a never-ceasing history of racism. I'm mad as hell, personally, because I thought we were better than this, I thought America, supposed land of the free, was finally trying to shake loose the burden of racism which has shackled us from our very beginnings.

I'm annoyed as hell that we applaud the rebellion in a movie where they pledge if "we burn, you burn with us," but denounce people who have, very much in real life, been oppressed violently. Probably because it's a pretty white woman doing the screaming. That's what I wish for the world, that more people would speak up, be enraged at the horrible things being done here.

I can't breathe. We can't breathe. I can't stop thinking about this. How can the body of America continue to live without air? This is so heart-breaking. Please, speak out, don't allow racism to continue to rear its ugly head. Just so you know, if you remain silent on this, you are complicit in this murder.

Married & Almost 30

Photo Credit: Leighanne Herr Photography

"I feel good with my husband: I like his warmth and his bigness and his being-there and his making and his jokes and stories and what he reads and how he likes fishing and walks and pigs and foxes and little animals and is honest and not vain or fame-crazy and how he shows his gladness for what I cook him and joy for when I make him something, a poem or a cake, and how he is troubled when I am unhappy and wants to do anything so I can fight out my soul-battles and grow up with courage and a philosophical ease. I love his good smell and his body that fits with mine as if they were made in the same body-shop to do just that. What is only pieces, doled out here and there to this boy and that boy, that made me like pieces of them, is all jammed together in my husband. So I don't want to look around any more: I don't need to look around for anything." 

-Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I married Tom on an overcast afternoon in Downtown Houston, in front of our closest loved ones. I'm told the sun chose our vows as the moment to make an appearance, but I was too focused on not crying to notice Ra celebrating my love & our promises to each other. Expectedly, the night passed in a whirl of brief moments with people, punctuated with drinks, snapshots of the night remembered the next day. 

Everything about our wedding was perfect. I could not have asked for anything more. Not a step was out of place, not a plan falling awry. 

I cannot wait to get the rest of our wedding pictures! Leighanne is not only a photographer, but truly an artist, taking not just pictures, but making each photograph into its own work of art. 

Now with the stress of wedding planning behind us & the anticipation of a beautiful photo album all that remains, we look forward to our honeymoon! I'm slowly working towards organizing the myriad of activities we have planned. Tom asked if we could take a couple weeks break from planning before I started another spreadsheet. :P I can't help it! I love planning! I love the organization, the fitting of puzzle pieces together to make an event come alive. It's a way for me to control the chaotic world in which we live. I theorize that's why I love cooking so much; each night I can plan & execute a gourmet dinner, crafting & controlling my evening. 

Anyhow, for a while now, I've been warning people to expect big things of my 30th birthday, but now I'm kind of worn out on the BIG event planning & instead, I think I'm going to just have those available & in town over for a night of drinks & chatting. Low-key house party to ring in the new decade of life. 

Each year gets better & better; I can't wait for what 30 has in store for me! The best part continues to be sharing this life of mine with Tom.

love,

christine