can't stop thinking about it.

Take This Waltz.

(it's on instant watch on netflix by the way)

my heart (age 18 - early 20's)

(from That Kind of Woman)

never stop doing that.

At work last night as we were cleaning up the store, i was talking across the aisle to a coworker who was telling me about his girlfriend. I forget how, but he mentioned how he bought her flowers earlier that day just because. To which i said, "never stop doing that. never stop giving her flowers." 

This is what I came home to last night. It made my heart so happy. 

I'm honestly usually not a flowers type of girl (bring me a treat instead) but sometimes you need a gesture as beautiful as flowers. 

note: reese's peanut butter ice cream cups were waiting for me in the fridge 

Wanting to know you Wens.

Have you ever gone on a blind date? or gone on a date with someone you met through the internet?

I did both with a guy named Travis. Remember myspace? We met on there. We had friends in common so I wasn't worried he would turn out to be someone crazy.

I can remember how thrilling it was when i'd see his name in my inbox. It was exciting exchanging getting to know you emails with hints of future things we would do together.

Countless messages later, we decided to finally meet and go out to dinner. I remember being so nervous waiting for him to ring my doorbell. He was as cute and as fun as he was in his emails.

We'd meet up here and there and had one hot night in the back of his new truck---though we never became anything serious (bad timing).

Travis was my only experience of both meeting someone off the internet/blind date and what a good one it was. In fact, we're still facebook friends and awhile back he texted to congratulate me on my pregnancy.

It made me smile, just like his emails back in college.

photo 

what about you? & if you haven't done either, would you? 


share your blind date / internet dating experiences-- the good and the bad below :  

I'd do it all again.

It's so easy to wonder what your life would have been like if you chose a different life [a different person]. The what ifs, the maybes.

I sometimes catch myself restless with that very wonder.


I heard this song and it made me think of my husband and our beginning. And with my whole heart I know, I'd do it all again. For him, my love.



"I was about to walk away
You held my hand and said, "please stay"
'cause you and me are made to be
And I'd do it all again."


(my favorite song by the same artist)

what if.

i love tyler knott's work but especially these two pieces.

they're like silent prayers of art.


silent prayers, i might have said for you.

we'll always have Rome.

"i often wonder how are you"

(i love that broken english)

a once-upon a time... 

can't get this film out of my head.

 "And in the middle of most nights when i can't sleep,


i still replay you."

happy things to end the week with.

♥ she may be my twinkie's soulmate but we have matching rocks... mine (above) and april's (first pic) friendship rings.

♥ the only thing that can make a random tuesday better (especially a tuesday when i get called into work on a day off) is when husband takes me on a movie date. We saw Larry Crowne and i was absolutely charmed. Tom Hanks? such a celeb crush!

♥ excited to have plans with candice... finally! remember when she was our neighbor? they've moved to a bigger house (still in el paso) but with my part time job sometimes requiring me to close on fridays, our date nights have been affected. good thing i get off at 5 today!

♥ sitting outside on our back porch with stella bear on my lap (i love how she put her leg over mine!) silly pic but it made me giggle.

♥ night time reading with husband before bed. mine, love in the time of cholera // his, the collector

♥ and this last one... if you're like my girl fiancee and hate country music, don't press play (ha) but i am a Texan and during the summer there is nothing like good country blasting on your radio!

my girlfriend jessie sent me a country mixed tape and let me tell you it made my day before going to work yesterday. She played this one for us girls in san francisco and it brought tears to my eyes. So beautiful and if you're ever been lucky to experience love like this... (even the painful kind) you'll relate to these simple and gorgeous lyrics.

makes me want to be dancing in a country bar with the person this song reminds me of...

M, i thought of you when i heard this knowing you'd love it if you haven't already heard it.


Happy Friday Lovies!!! what happy things are you ending the week with? 

+please leave a link below if you do a post-- i'd love to share in your happiness xo

Wanting to Know you Wens.

i just finished reading "One Day" (which i loved) and the label, the one that got away came to mind.

we all have them... maybe you've just experienced that heart-ache. maybe for you it was years ago but they're there... this blurred vision of another life.

it's brave to admit it out loud. even kind of liberating, to admit that was then and that now (or someday) you'll be a better person for what you went through.

so a simple question today that will take a bit of courage...


what was the name of the one that got away? 


that simple. just a first name. you can add more if you want, but i think it will be interesting just to see the different names of those that slipped out of our grasp, whether it was mutual or we did the leaving or they left us. 

here goes... Chris.


but if i'm being really honest, my husband. my husband was almost the one that got away.

"because without the bitter, baby, the sweet ain't as sweet."

"Flew over El Paso @ 10 am this morning and wondered where you were down there."

text received yesterday morning from a lover i once knew. 

because sometimes it's there.

images : we heart it

nostalgia. 

my greatest regret is not getting out of a failing relationship right away. In the end it hurt us both and someone i once shared a life with... someone i knew with all my heart... is now a stranger. If we had done it right... if we had ended it earlier, correctly... less messy-- maybe we could have been friends.

because more than anything... i miss the friends we were.


---written as an answer to the question, if i ever regretted anything. 



i fell in love with "someone like you" by adele when marisa featured it (a great live version too). then claire emailed it to me again tonight. so beautiful, so heavy, so felt. {isn't that the definition of nostalgia?}


"Regrets and mistakes, they're memories made,


who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?"




the futures i left behind... 


yet this one i am blessed with, i would chose a thousand times over. 

so much sadness.

my heart is heavy this week... yesterday my dearest friend Joel (always jolie to me, my first love) delivered a message that broke my heart... his sister i was closest to, Libby passed away. 

my heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to his family who was once my family and always in my heart.

(joel is in the backwards cap and libby is the beautiful blond near him)

see the little cutie covering his ears in the orange? that's luis, the son Libby leaves behind who is now just in junior high. So much sadness. 

and yet as i was walking to my car tonight, i saw the most beautiful sunset.

more beautiful than i have seen in a long time or could have captured on my cell phone.

and i'm reminded of God's comfort.

A beautiful sunset from God to you. xo 

I am unredeemable.

a note: i have the urge to hit delete on this. It may be too much to understand, if you've never been there, and that's fine. But this is my heart on my sleeve.


For the longest time, I felt like my broken relationship defined me. It gave me a crutch to be a victim and have an excuse for my careless actions. It was who I accepted I was... that girl. I thought (and earnestly hoped) that a good guy who loved me for my light and regardless of my darkness (cos God knows he tried) would be enough to magically change me over night. No work on my part.

... that it would happen because it was meant to happen.

and now, and now when i'm seeing it all clearly--- that it doesn't work like that; that i have to want it bad enough to work on me --- it may be too late to save what i have broken.

i believe in God's plan for my life. I think there's a reason, He waited so long for me to find a book by chance in a book shop far away from my home. A book i had been wanting to read but never picked up.

But there it was... on a shelf in a shop that doesn't usually carry new bestsellers.

(this is a sign, i believe in those, you just have to listen)

in these pages, i have found myself. my glorious failings. My defects.

i know this sounds crazy, dear readers. but hear me out.

i wasn't kidding when i said that this book could possibly change my life. It already has. I feel it inside myself, somewhere i can't even pin point to except possibly in my heart that is so heavy burdened with damage-- the worse kind of damage; the self-inflicted kind.

dear readers, if you never pick this book up off the shelves then consider this my gift to you:

sooo many of it's pages are dog eared in my copy (and i'm not even done yet) but yesterday when i was so sick with grief and emptiness, these lines were there. I needed them at that exact moment. If you have ever been this lost, this hard on yourself... if you've ever been good at brooding about a relationship that is clearly not healthy for you... then these words are for you.


pg 182-185



"I was unredeemable. And this unredeemed dark hole was still inside me. Even in moments of happiness and excitement (especially moments of happiness and excitement) I could never forget it for long... And that felt like it would never change, never release...


"One of these days this has to end," I said. "I just wish I knew how." 


....


INSTRUCTIONS FOR FREEDOM


1.  Life's metaphors are God's instructions.


2.  There is nothing between you and the Infinite. Now, let go.


3.  The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go.


4.  Your wish for resolution was a prayer. Your being here is God's response. Let go, and watch the stars come out-- on the outside and on the inside.


5.  With all your heart, ask for grace, and let go.


6.  With all your heart, forgive him, FORGIVE YOURSELF, and let him go.


7.  Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering. Then, let go.


8.  Watch the heat of the days pass into cool nights. Let go.


9.  When the  karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe. Let go.


10.  When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life. With great joy. 




...Then I shut my eyes and I said, "Dear Lord, please show me everything I need to understand about forgiveness and surrender."

a fine frenzy.

i so badly wanted to share what my dearest friend Claire sent me earlier this week. i realized frustrated that the photographs i took were not in the best lighting, so i'll have to take them again. i'll share tomorrow, promise!

here's a preview of how much claire and i are alike...

in this darling care package, Claire sent another round of THE BEST mixed cds. Each song she puts on these mixes... i have felt. I feel that much more connected to her knowing that the reason she can relate to them is nearly the same as mine. 

one of the songs on said mix:

(i can't stop staring at how beautiful the singer is)

Mine & Claire's connection reminds me of a part in "Eat Pray Love" that i've dog eared:

He says, "I'm sorry, but I don't understand. Did you lose something today?"

But I'm still having trouble figuring out how to talk....

"It's about a love story, Giovanni. I had to say good-bye to someone today." 

Then my hands are slapped over my eyes again, tears spraying through my clamped fingers. Bless his heart, Giovanni doesn't try to put a reassuring arm around me, nor does he express the slightest discomfort about my explosion of sadness. Instead, he just sits through my tears in silence, until I've calmed down. At which point he speaks with perfect empathy, choosing each word with care, saying slowly and clearly and kindly: 

"I understand, Liz. I have been there."

-pg. 87

we have been there, me and Claire.

we are connected to each other because we have been there.

"Wouldn't it be lovely if we were old? We'd have survived all this."

one of my favorite love stories is the classic "The Way We Were." This film never fails to make my heart ache. I cry every single time Katie calls Hubblle in tears, begging him to come over.

If you've ever desperately loved someone, you want them to be the one to make it all better, even if they're the one that hurt you. You let them see you weak because they are your weakness. She says on the phone that she needed someone to talk to and it would be fine if she had a best friend, only he was her best friend.

i remember when my epic relationship failed, what hurt the most was losing my best friend. Even reading this post about my Hubbell... more than a year later & in such a better place in my life... it still makes me cry for how alone i felt in that moment. That aching realization of the weight of what is lost.

i am a Katie girl.

Complicated... often times too much and when i love, "i'm deaf, dumb, and blind."

i believe that sometimes two people can love each other so much and it still not work out, no matter how hard you try.

Katie Morosky Gardner: You'll never find anyone as good for you as I am, to believe in you as much as I do or to love you as much.

Hubbell Gardner: I know that.

Katie Morosky Gardner: Well then why?

Hubbell Gardner: Do you think if I come back its going to be okay by magic? What's going to change? What's going to be different? We'll both be wrong, we'll both lose.

Katie Morosky Gardner: Couldn't we both win?

youth.

while unpacking a couple of boxes, i found childhood photographs of an ex boyfriend. My first serious ex boyfriend. The first guy i dreamt of spending forever with.

i knew he should have these, that they no longer belonged to me.


inside the card, i wrote this:

"As much as I'm going to miss these (my little Jolie) I know that you should have them. I found them tucked away in an old wallet and was sad...

sad for failing this little boy.

"Think only of the past as it's remembrance gives you pleasure." -Jane Austen

ps. I am so thankful you are still part of my life."

and honestly i am.


i often forget that he was very much my heart's first lesson. I don't give him that credit because i'm much too blind from a greater love than i've ever known.


but Once Upon a Time....

"days of laughter, nights of sighing" - Okkervil River

i had a boyfriend in college named camron.
he was the editor of our college newspaper.
he was the skinniest boy i've ever dated.

his cat named shrinkle was the only cat i ever loved.
in fact, i watched her while he was out of town.
i felt so grown up.

our first date was a nap in bed on an early saturday morning.

he didn't even kiss me until awhile after that.

he wanted to write me a love letter on yellow legal paper for every day that we were apart, until i came back to him.

i can't remember when he stopped.

he gave me a cd and introduced me to bands i had never heard of and love to this day- Death Cab For Cutie, Bright Eyes, Azure Ray, and Okkervil River.

Especially Okkervil River's "Main Island Lovers." The song haunted me from the very first time i heard it. His voice is dark / sad / raw & even moreso when you know what the lyrics are about. Two people meeting up for a lost weekend; one knows they're going to end it... the other does not.

the end gets me every time.

have a listen... i hope this link works.

(pic via restart my heart)

....

image via (NO) sex and the city

"By morning, you'll be gone."

Clementine: This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon.

Joel: I know.

Clementine: What do we do?

Joel: Enjoy it.

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

vanessa reminded me again why i lalalove this movie.

why it's tragically real, tragically beautiful.

because i've often wondered this.