We have been in our new home (the corner nestled next to the hill) for 10 months now.
It is filled with objects we have put hours into, wondering if it will fit in there just right. We've had sex in every corner of it, even the closet, even the washing machine, even the balcony. Things have gone wrong, like using the oven when it isn't clean and causing the whole house to be filled with smoke, but things have more importantly, gone right. Like being content with sleeping on the floor for 3 months because we were saving up for a bed because it's okay, we're together. The dining table we got for $90 from someone on craigslist this weekend might not be the best addition to our home, but that's okay, we resell it and keep going anyway.
Like everything else, building our home together is a process. It is putting things in and taking them away. It is watering the succulents and being baffled when they keep dying anyway. It is the stubbornness to keep watering them, almost drowning them, thinking that it will restore the greenness they once had, but being wrong. Maybe the solution is something else. Maybe you try something new.
Franklin and I will celebrate our 2 years together in a month. I feel like I have known him all of my life, and yet, we are still so clueless about each other. Our relationship is at the point where we think we know everything about each other but forgetting that people change. I have changed, I have grown so much, and he has too. We still have a long way to learn to grow together, and as hard as it may be, as frustrating as it can get, it's possible, I know it's worth it.
A year ago I did not know how to muster enough courage to get out of bed until 4 p.m. The leaves outside of our room in that sad, shared, apartment created a shadow that I knew was beautiful and let in enough light I was aware made me warm, but I couldn't process. Now the light is everywhere, I can let the worlds beauty seep in to me, I can feel warm. I have grown, I have yet to grow.
Franklin has become something impossible, someone even better than the person I met. It is such a gift to be able to see someone you consider the most amazing person in the world, a being you are baffled by, keep evolving. He trips, like everyone else, but he gets up, and that is where I get the inspiration to keep going from. I can be better, I can be better for him, the representation of everything I live for.
In 13 days, I turn 22. Time doesn't make any sense to me. I have made wonderful friends in the span of 4 weeks, I am in fucking nursing school. In less than 2 years from now, I will (hopefully) be a Registered Nurse, something I never thought I wanted but realized was the one of the only things I could be. I will directly be responsible for the care of those that need it the most. But in 13 days, I turn 22, and right now, I am sitting in a Starbucks (I don't even like Starbucks), writing, because I have not taken the time to just analyze my life in... maybe a year, and taking it all in. I want to spend days doing this, getting back to where I was, because I feel like parts of me have gone missing or have been forgotten. They are still there, they will come back, but I also cannot stagnate, I have goals to keep chasing. I can keep growing, I can keep learning, I will keep loving, I will stay grateful.
