Random continous thoughts this year.

 I think growing up I believed intimacy was sexual in nature. I have always been a highly sexual person, and in many of my relationships, sexual intimacy was always emphasized. But looking back, little else really exemplified strong connections to those people. The other night we were laying in bed, and I was almost asleep. Dean's hand all of sudden clasped my hand, which was laying on my chest, and he fell asleep there, holding my hand. I have been exhausted the last few weeks finishing my nursing degree. There were nights when Dean would come home excited to tell me about his day, and I would be sitting on the couch, twenty or more pages into a clinical paper, unable to see my partner. I could physically see him, but I wasn't present the way he deserved. Some people might have been angered, frustrated with the lack of emotional or physical correspondence that typically takes place in passing with their partner. But Dean understood. This wasn't just my journey. It may have started out as my dream, but over time it became our dream. I graduated the other day, (my actual graduation is on Friday this week), but I completed my pinning ceremony and was accepted into the profession as a colleague. We got home and we both got ready for bed. Everything hit me, and I cried. I crawled into bed and apologized, I had no idea that the events of the day would have such a profound emotional effect on me. Yet, when I looked over expecting to see Dean smiling or laughing because he gets my sensitive side so well, he was instead crying. He wrapped me up, making sure I knew that he was so proud of me. Because this wasn't just four years of study, this was something I threw myself into because a giant hole had been torn into my universe at one time. I needed a reason to keep going. I needed to pour all the extra love I had into something with purpose. Along the way, I met patients who just needed to be seen, and I saw them. Following one of my clinical rotations, an older lady grabbed my arm before transferring her into her family's truck at discharge. She became emotional and thanked me for being human. I drove the hour home that night and cried. I had made an impact. You make impacts all the time, ones that may never be voiced, or ones that may not even be felt by the person doing the action. But, you see them. You see them in a person's comfort, in the ease of pain, in the ease of anxiety. Even more, you will be caught off guard when patients embrace you in words and touch letting you know that you have made a difference. Never forget how vital the little things are. To you they may be simple, to a stranger who may not feel seen or heard, they are bigger than we can imagine. 

Dean and I do not have the perfect relationship. No one does. We rarely argue, and we always strive to communicate and meet each other's needs. But that is a dance that we do that is never perfect. We are always learning more, not only about each other but about ourselves. I would be lying if I told you our love story didn't have hiccups. One day soon I will write about my own personal journey through trauma, depression, and mental health issues that I didn't recognize and that took me huge strides to address. I am not healed. But I am healing. I took an entire year to be alone a couple years ago. It was one of the loneliest but necessary moments in my life. I learned to like myself again. I learned to be confident again. I resolved so much anger and hurt. I couldn't love my partner the way he really deserves without first loving myself. Today, I know without a doubt, that some of the losses I felt in this life were God's way of helping me identify my path. 

We danced in the kitchen last night. We had just baked cookies. Dean dipped me and kissed me, and I laughed. I don't know what I did in this life to find someone who just loves me. Who strives every day to love me the way that every human being in this life deserves to be loved. I know now that true intimacy is something you can't recognize until you go through darkness with someone. Until you show someone who you are, naked, vulnerable, and trusting they will find even the harshest corners and blunt edges beautiful. Thank you to the man, who has been convinced since meeting me that I am your other half. It took me a second to figure out who I am. But I know she was built to spend her existence loving you, and building a life with you that I could not imagine with anyone else. Thank you for pushing me to love myself, outside of loving you. At the end of all of it, you just wanted me to be happy. How rare to find that in another human being.