ispiration and a dark black cloud

I spent the last 3 hours reading....yes reading...not blogs or magazines or pinterest...reading. Reading a book that has already made me cry twice. I recently (about 4 months ago) was told about Kelle Hampton. She is an incredible woman, wife and mother of two who found out when her second daughter was born that she had Down's Syndrome. And while I have been stalking her blog filled with beautiful pictures that she takes of her girls and her sunny florida backdrop of life, she has just written a book of her story with her daughter and how it changed her into this amazing glass half full person she is today. How she took potential tragedy and turned it into such a gift and blessing for their family. So I have been reading her story, one that I already knew alot about. She has included so many more details I didn't know and while it seems weird to think she is sharing her personal life story with the world, she is doing it for a reason. She is a gift to so many struggling out there with motherhood, with down's, with life. She has been a beacon of light for me and so many. Reading the comments that people write on her blog just blow my mind. She is truley an angel and was given the circumstances she is in to help others. She and Nella (her daughter) are in this world and sharing their life for a reason. Pure Inspiration that we can get through the hard things.

She inspired me to splurge the money and buy a good camera and never stop taking pictures. Because mothers are the memory keepers and while I don't have kids, I know several people who do and I want my kids to see what life was like before they existed. To see what mom and dad were up to, especially mom, to see our friends, our familys, our projects and life. To see the good things and the hard things.

I wished I had started writing down things that happened to me in the past. To share my story....with myself. To really think about my life and how I became the person I am today. How I got here....I have a very vivid memory but it won't last forever and some things fade. Some things that I don't want to fade. Things like my first date with Taylor. Him picking me up at my parent's house, me being so nervous and being so excited the man drove a pick up truck. How he almost got hit by a speeding car in the parking gargage on the plaza while we nervously laughed and then expertly backed in to our tight parking spot and ran to open the door for me. I had never been treated like that by a man before and I was dumbfounded how different it all felt from minute one. Our conversations that night were amazing, things from friends we had in common, college life, what our hopes and dreams were and "the grossest thing you've seen as a nursing student so far". It just felt so right. I can still remember sitting at the bar waiting for a table with him,  holding my heavy (brand new that day for the date because I forgot all my winter coats in Emporia) black wool trench coat in my lap and sharing beers while the crowds of loud people in the dim light hustled around us in a strange silence we could completely tune out. I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich with no onion and he ordered the kansas city strip and told me how he raised a steer growing up and wanted to get a new pair of cowboy boots....
 Neither of us wanted to go home after dinner so we caught a late movie at town center "The book of Eli" with Denzel Washington (one of my favorite actors). Taylor hated it, I loved it because when I jumped during a car crash scene he sweetly looked at me and put his hand on my knee to show he was there for me. ON OUR FIRST DATE! He's always been there. My biggest cheerleader. And he forced me to sing along to the radio with him and the song "I'm a little more country than that" was blaring on that crisp february night. He walked me to the door and I was praying he would kiss me. I wanted to know if there was a spark and then WOW fireworks, I had never felt that way before and after I locked the heavy front door and turned off the porch light I did a little happy dance in my living room and thought "this is it, that's him".

It's those memories that I want written down. So I don't forget what I felt, and what I was wearing and what we did. So I can tell our kids how amazing it feels to fall in love with the perfect man and know what "right" feels like. You obviously don't take pictures on your first date....but you can reinact it during your engagement shoot....

This is the exact booth we sat in, in the exact spots and while I sat politely on my seat in that booth, I wanted to be leaned into him like that so badly. I was so into him from minute one. I texted my mom from the bathroom "yes" and that was it. That one word and that meant to her that yes he drove a truck.

So it's Kelle I have to thank as of late for showing me how amazing it is to captivate your life in words and pictures. To tell your story even when noone is listening. To have it written down. God forbid something happen to me, but if it does I want the people I love to know how I felt about them and to know who I was as a person.

Who I am as a person I feel has been over shadowed by a dark black cloud the last few months and while I won't blame gluten, you have a very difficult time being a happy cheery chipper self that you so desperately want to be when you are constantly sick. Without gluten I feel great, emotionally and physically. My mind is clearer now, I am not distracted by pain and discomfort and anxiety. I feel like the cloud has been lifted and I have my good self back. I feel so happy the last few days, so inspired, so empowered to grab life by the horns and tackle it head on. To live my best life, with my husband and family and friends by my side. To be the woman that I so desperately want to be and know that I am buried deep inside. Today I realized the dark cloud has been lifted, I feel free. And as hot tears rolled down my face during my read-a-thon this evening as my heart hurt for Kelle and her sweet baby and the mourning for what was expected that didn't happen. She has shown me what I firmly beleive is true in that, life isn't what we expect, it never will be. You can never plan what is to come because God is in control, not me. But you do have control and can plan to make the best of bad situations, to have a positive outlook, to be completely enamoured by a conversation or a picture, to choose to run to the door when your husband gets home from class at night and hug him like you will never see him again. To love like no tommorrow and to remember how that feels. To document it is an even more beautiful thing. Life isn't easy, I know that for sure. Losing my dad at such a young age and having to decide what would be his fate wasn't easy, I felt like I was playing god. But a heartbreaking event doesn't have to change your life for the worse. It doesn't mean you are depressed and sad and hurting for the rest of your life. It hurts, life hurts and hardships are always around the bend but I refuse to be negatively defined by an unfortunate circumstance in my life. I refuse to let the hardship win. You make the best of a terrible situation and you move on. You continue on a path you WANT to live and you choose to be a happy person. To bloom as Kelle calls it into what is meant to be. To "find the beauty in the unexpected" and the unplanned and make life all that you can and to live life big and happy and full. So thanks again Kelle for pointing out what should have been the obvious tonight. and now onto the next chapters of my story...



CHECK KELLE OUT HERE at kellehampton.com AND GO BUY HER BOOK! It's called "Bloom"