Everything is going to be Terrific!

I am such a lucky girl.  

 devon and little desmond schatzel.

oklahoma Nov 09

No, seriously.  I'm a very, very lucky girl and I want ya'll to know that I fully recognize how awesome my life is.  Sure there are the handful of those challenging times we all face; the ones that make you chant WHY ME, WHY ME, WHY ME over and over again.  And recently, even amongst an extraordinarily happy engagement and weirdly satisfied dog (he's a weirdly happy dog!), those challenging times have been coming on a little stronger than I've been particularly comfortable.

And now?  Now, it doesn't matter.  Tough times, I'm telling you, I'm SO ready for you.  Bring it on.  After this past weekend, I feel like I'm ready to take just about anything on right now.  "Feeling invincible" doesn't even begin to sum it up.

Talk about feeling confident? 

That's what happens when you have friends like these.

happy faces typically sprinkled all over n.america.
represented: oklahoma - chicago - vancouver - connecticut - san francisco - oregon (ish)
oklahoma Nov 09

It's taken almost a full week for me to sort through the clutter of emotions and words that piled into my brain last weekend in Oklahoma.  Add in a constant barrage of old songs (lots of BackstreetBoys and SlimShady for some weird reason) and girl-screaming and streaming tears and BABIES! and it has been more than the little pipe between my brain and my fingers could handle once I returned home.  I've made several attempts, but haven't yet been able to type out how much this past weekend meant to me because it was so.overwhelmingly.good.  Like chicken soup without all the work.  Just so good for my soul. 

We laughed SO HARD.  
Like, SO HARD.  
oklahoma Nov 09 

I got face cramps and loads of extra wrinkles from the constant grinning and I may have even sprained a rib from laughing so hard.  From remembering crazy camp stories to, omgosh, realizing that Oregonian Brad adopted an ACCENT over the past few years!  Like, a full-on really strong Oklahoman accent that is so super sexy on him.  Complete with real ostrich cowboy boots, a manly scruffy chin, and that ever-so-serious scowl when telling us girls that we're staying up way past our bedtime.  Hot.

Let me backtrack...

 Somewhere in Pennsylvania 

Summer 2000

We all met each other 9 years ago at a summer camp in the Poconos.  It was a magical summer where we formed lifelong friendships in the fast 8 weeks together.  These are good people I became friends with that summer; adventurous, giving, loving, and kind.  I wouldn't trade them in for anything.

That was 2000; Brad was a student in Oregon (goducks) and had returned to CampCayuga, unsure of how the second summer could possibly be as great of an experience as the first.  Ha...little did he know.  The first week all the counselors gathered in those mysterious hills of Pennsylvania, in blew an Oklahoman beauty who took his breath away and changed everything he thought he understood about life.  I mean, this girl FLIPPEDHISBRAIN.  Over the next 8 weeks at camp, you could sit back and watch as his head literally spun around in circles, his heart melted into a big ole puddle, and I repeatedly bawled at how incredible it all was to witness. The next few years involved cross-country, long-distance, college love.  I remember staying up super late on the phone with Brad (me in my sorority house, he in the big blue Oregon house), trying to work through his thoughts and his discomfort with being so far away from his soul mate.  I jumped up and down with joy when he signed up for a semester “abroad” at Lauren’s school (goOrangeteam).  More courting, graduation, WEDDING!, a move to Long Beach (ca), several months back on the east coast (including some time in Manhattan), and spending a year playing all around Europe.  These kids have LIVED and somehow continue to build so many more memories with each other.  And as I got to witness firsthand this weekend, that girl continues to FLIPHISBRAIN.

Don't be alarmed, her leg's just bent.

Summer 2000

With Lauren that summer, I also found a personal inner calm I didn't even knew existed.  She is nothing short of the sweetest girl I know and she cultivated this strange inner peace in me.  I, too, fell in love with this girl.  She was comforting and calm and gave me the warm and fuzzy feeling that Everything is going to be Terrific!   Together, she and Brad taught me more about love than any book or website or cheesy romantic comedy ever told me I ought to strive for.  They were all of 20 & 21 years old that summer and I fully understood that what they had together was one-of-a-kind.

Unfortunately, although she left me with all the right tools, I was only capable of holding onto the "Everything is going to be Terrific!" mentality for a short while after and more recently, I've been kind of tapped out.  I didn't even realize it, but I missed that feeling of a squeeze-your-brains-out emotional embrace that only Lauren+Brad are capable.  I was incredibly overdue for some serious in-person time; for a refill on that squishy, happy feeling. 

Their wedding day - 2002

Last weekend couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. 

Together with their new babies I immediately fell for, they reminded me that if you’re lucky enough to find the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, just hang on real tight and do anything, ANYTHING, for love.  Abandon apprehension, let go of gripes, just fall into it and love HARD.  It will no doubt pay off in more ways than you can begin to calculate and with this strategy, Everything is going to be Terrific!  They deal with life's hardships just like everyone else, but they dance and smile and hug and love through it all.  I can do that.  I can dance and smile and hug and I can certainly love.

Me + Des

oklahoma Nov 09 

I think it can best be summed up by a quote from Brad in response to me whisper-shouting to him in the kitchen, “DUDE!  HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!  YOU LIVE IN OKLAHOMA!!”  He said, with the calmest smile and a twinkle in his eye, “I don't really know how it all happened, but I honestly believe that I am the happiest person I know.”



I got my self-prescribed refill.  I feel confident that together with Jamie, I can take risks, I can make moves, I can be open to change and challenges and different things.  I just know we'll get through it all. So.super.confident. 

And those aforementioned tough times?  They'll have nothing on us.

I've got a secret weapon in my pocket:

Bring it on.