The second thing I am excited about this summer happened: my big brother made it home from Afghanistan, safe. The big ole bear hug he gave me has never felt so good.
I spent most of this week with my family who came down south to welcome Dave home, and next week I get to spend even more time with them (graduation weekend yeeeee whooo!). It's an interesting thing to spend time with the people who raised you, who taught you everything, and then to share mutual realization when your similarities begin to be limited to that place we all call home.
I think the easiest reaction to this is to walk away, say I've changed and you don't understand me. It's easy to say "Well, I'm just not that close with my family anymore." But the easy road is not always the right road. Instead, we learn to cherish the few things we still have in common, like those old dirt backroads and apple trees and elementary school memories. And when we hit those bumpy conversations, we remember that learning isn't just something we did as children, but that these conversations are daily lessons.
Lesson this week: grace and acceptance. Teacher: my uncle Greg. You see, in many ways, my outlook on life varies a great deal from those of my immediate family members, and that is often a point of contention that builds walls between our hearts. But when my uncle and I spoke, though our differences were clear as day, he took joy in that difference. We laughed and he poked fun at my "hippie" ways, but I felt loved and I felt the walls breaking down instead of being built.
And as I realized how much I had craved that acceptance, I also realized how much I had been disinclined to give it in return, specifically to my dad, my mom, my brother and my sister. I had been holding them to a standard of graceful attitudes that I was not even upholding.
So here is the color of the day, get ready for it. It is red, orange and yellow, green, blue, and violet. Yes, I'm choosing the rainbow today because our souls are all different colors, hues and shades. One might think that so many colors would clash when put together, but ya know what? It really is beautiful.
