The Sprouffskes • Life on the Farm: homesick.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

homesick.

for the first time ever, i am homesick for a place other than my current home. i'm going to be out of town this weekend, and jonathan's got the dogs at the house in rainier. there's no pups underfoot, no dog bones to trip over, no dogs fighting in the house, no dogs barking at a leaf falling off a tree like it's going to break through the roof of the house and we're all in danger...

...it's just quiet.

and i can't believe how much i miss all three of them.

last weekend, when i was in reno, my blackberry buzzed with this email that my friends (who really know viper and our family's history with small dogs and the crazy things they do) will appreciate:

the dogs and i will miss you, well, mostly me since maggie has viper and viper has a ceramic dwarf.

i even miss the thought of viper and a ceramic dwarf that jonathan's dad handcrafted. seriously, what is the world coming to?

g.k. chesterton said that "the way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost." over the last few weeks, jonathan and i have experienced loss in a handful of different ways. loss of a loved one, of a friend, seeing friends lose things and people in their lives that were (and are) important to them...you just never know when things will change. when your life will turn upside down.

seven months ago, if you had told me i would get in a coloring contest with a guy five years younger (sorry, babe, 4 years and 10 months younger) than me and i would know - that night - that i wanted to marry him...i would have thought you were crazy.

what i've learned from jonathan is so much more than i've learned in the entirety of my life...how to love unconditionally, how to fight for what you want, how to sacrifice and surrender (even and especially when it's remarkably difficult to do) for those you love, how to accept losing gracefully (though he learns that more around me than i learn around him), how to serve in love all the time, and the importance of making each moment count...for you never know what's ahead.

i love that he loves me for who i am. all the time. even when i am a giant pain in the ass and refuse to acknowledge he's right and i'm wrong. (though that rarely happens)

he brings so much joy to my life.

JPII said that "maintaining a joyful family requires much...each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of others."

thank you, doc, for teaching me how to serve others in my life...more consistently and fully.

even when you make me crazy like this:

and tonight, missing you and all the things that i am learning make a house a home...are a few glimpses of last night's walk through the trees...with maggie (who you seemed to think i got no shots of)...