Loving the Journey

A few weeks ago, I decided to visit my old blog. My old old blog. The blog that predated weddings and getting married and becoming a complete blog fanatic. It was, in fact, the first blog that stuck with me and it saw me through some rough times during the year Mike and were doing that whole long distance thing, which was also the year I lost my beloved maternal grandmother. I’ve toyed around with the idea of deleting that blog, but somehow I can’t bring myself to part with those random musings, those random moments that were often nothing more or less than an outpouring of emotion – happiness, frustration, glee, hope, confusion. I had no idea at that time just how completely blogging would change my life – which is not to be dramatic, it’s simply true. With that said, there were some really great posts and one in particular made me smile so I thought I’d share it with you here. Roughly eighteen months later, I can tell you that on March 30, 2008, I basically had it all figured out…

“I’ve come to realize that the only thing we can truly expect in life is the unexpected. Expectations, in one fashion or another, inevitably fail to come to fruition with great regularity, and for that reason one should never claim to know the ending of the story when they are still in the first chapters of the book. Never has this been more true than in my own life. There were things I fully planned on happening that never came to pass. The were other things I would have bet my life on never happening that unfolded in a series of unanticipated events that dramatically altered the course of my life forever. Occurrences I would have believed would break me, paved a road to a greater happiness than I had ever previously experienced and in the process, set me free from self-imposed constraints I never realized existed. A year ago, two years ago, three years ago…I never would have imagined I would be where I am today with regards to life, love, career, family nor geography. Perhaps with some irony, I could not be happier to be where I am, and that has served to make me keenly aware of just how uncertain life is, both in beautiful and tragic ways. This weekend marked a major turning point in the direction my life will go from this point forward, and it brings me to the blissful realization that we should always expect the unexpected, and that we should love the journey no matter how unpredictable.”

Amen to that.

And what, pray tell, was going on the weekend of March 30, 2008? We had just picked out my engagement ring, shown here with my custom wedding band…