Last night I was running around my apartment — lighting candles, cleaning counters, running up the street at 10pm to pickup dinner…
At 10:30 my phone rang, and my mom told me she was parked out front.
I think one of my favorite feelings as an adult is when I don’t feel like one… do you know what I mean?
I think so often as we grow, we are dulled in ways. Kids live so free — squealing with excitement and jumping for joy, literally.
Upon picking up the phone last night, I threw on the quickest slip on shoes I could find and ran… LITerally ran down the hallway — then down the stairs, and all the way down the sidewalk, searching everywhere for a car with lights on.
My neighborhood is quiet at night — and although that can be peaceful, I sometimes find myself worrying that I’m too loud, or if I find myself walking after the sun is down I need to act invisible.
But last night… I didn’t care.
As my mom got out of the car I literally jumped for joy like I was a 3 year old who had just been offered a candy bar. We hugged and jumped together in the middle of the street — two grown adults — and it was freeing.
In that moment, I wasn’t worried about who walked by, or if they thought I was being “too much.” Because I was overwhelmed with love and a unique happiness that is hard to find. I was too busy showing love. Feeling love.
Love can be, and is, a lot of things. I’ve spent so much of my life searching for it — and yet how wonderful are moments like last night… to remind us, to remind me, that love is more than a future companion, but it’s also the jumping for joy hugs with my mom, and the pumpkin coffee cup my niece surprised me with. It’s in the little girls I share my love of dance with every Saturday and the young boys I learn from every Tuesday. Love is in the community I have found and in the faith I follow. It’s everywhere… we just have to be open enough to see it.
