just me

"Thank you" changes everything. I wake up to the crashing ocean waves every morning, go to sleep at the sound of their rhythm every night, and I sometimes forget to say "thank you" to Laetitia for another perfect day. Today, I am especially grateful, simply because I am finally getting a hold on what it means to be involved in people's lives. There is a certain intimacy that only people 'on the inside' can feel. I love being on the inside of this family. These people are genuinely brilliant, kind-hearted, and just flat-out fun. They are people whose company I genuinely enjoy. Thank you to them for letting me be a part of their lives.

Perhaps I am a slow learner, but I can say for certain that I am, at last, able to understand what it means to truly adore people. As a task-oriented person, I am prone to overlook people, to disregard their needs in effort to finish the job well. I love that I am confronted daily with the challenge of putting other people before me. I have no choice but to be at the disposal of this family nearly every moment of every day, simply because there are children involved. As exhausting as it may sometimes be, I am thrilled that they depend so heavily upon me. Each day I spend with them is a day well spent.

I hope that you can say the same about the people with whom you live. I am certainly one of those who has had her share of misadventures with roommates and difficult times. But, I remind myself often that I am the only one who can make the most of my life. No one else has the ability to be me. In my birthday card this year, my dad wrote: "Just think of the things that you know how to do, the sort of things that no one can do EXCEPT you." I hope that you know how important you are, not just to everyone else, but especially to me.

Thanks for still reading. I am still thinking of you.