feeding my soul

i've been thinking about this a lot this weekend. this whole "feeding the soul" concept. without getting all "oprah" and "chicken soupy" on you, let's go there.

i've had a lot of a-ha's (crap, oprah!) since becoming a mom. things that just didn't really make sense to me until i had a little munchkin of my own. things i respected but didn't quite relate to. i've acknowledged being a quality time kind of gal back before i got knocked up. it's only catapulted since becoming a wife, and even more since becoming a mama. it's a definite theme in my life. if i don't have quality time with the people i hold near and dear, i feel disconnected. empty. off.

when i went to college i made a really conscious decision. i was going to spend my time with the people i wanted to spend it with. i was going to spend my time doing the things i wanted to do, not the things i felt obligated to do. i was going to be friends with people because they fed my soul in some way. i was going to learn how to be alone. i was going to learn how to enjoy me. be who i wanted to be. not who i thought people wanted me to be. i struggled with this in high school. who doesn't, i guess. high school for me was about navigating around the cliques and finding common ground with people, but never wanting to draw a lot of attention to myself. i made a lot of amazing friends in high school. friends i still absolutely adore today. people that know me, love me, accept me. people who know my core. this carried me into college. i wouldn't go back to high school if you paid me a million dollars, but i would go back to my college years for free if i could. those years were so defining for me. i stayed true to who i was - for most of it. (i had a bumpy 6 months in there where i got caught up in religion [i'll save the really vulnerable details of that time for another day] and became this super over the top judgmental version of myself. that i'd skip if i could, but i can't. instead i've owned it, learned from it, and moved on.) i look back on my college years and think about all the people i met and all of the people that contributed to it being so amazing. meeting myself  in there was probably the most rewarding. my soul (and my gut) was full and fat in college. i learned what it felt like to feel that way. the only care i had in the world was getting to class on time, meeting up with my cronies at starbucks for hours on end, making plans to meet up at poppe's, passing whatever math class i was barely getting through, and what to eat for dinner - lemon grass thai food, haagen chinese food, pizza pipeline, or mac n' cheese. oh bellingham, how you fed me both figuratively and literally.

fast forward (and skip another 2 year stint of losing myself... man, owning it in here feels pretty good actually...) to today. my life is obviously so much different than my "wild and free" college years. but i have found new ways to feed my soul. i know, based off the posts i've shared the last 8 months, this won't come as a surprise. time with my little family feeds my soul. seeing my little guy light up when he sees that both mama and daddy are home to cuddle him on saturday mornings is what i call, well, the better than warm chocolate cake. i love his morning face, his little breath. i love hearing ty talk to him in the morning. and kiss him. i love the feeling of doing nothing but being together.

i feed my soul in other ways too - like spending time with just ty. the two of us together, reminiscing on how we met, what our life together so far has meant to us, and day dreaming about what is to come. i love spending time with my mama, laughing at the hilarity of trying on bras together, for instance. or spending time with my dad and trev. usually getting laughed at the whole time, but perfection none the less. or spending time with my sweet girlfriends - the one's that love me for me and have seen me through some thickness AND thinness. pun intended.

we all have to find it - the feeding-of-the soul "it" that drives us. makes us feel whole again. i know i'm a lucky chick. i know to some i may sound like the corniest, chicken soupiest girl out there. it doesn't really matter though to those that know the "it" i am talking about. it could be anything. but whatever you do, find it and own it. everything else just falls into place when you do.

am i right, or am i right? or am i right? right, right, right. (groundhogs day anyone?!)

on the wyatt-front, he's less than 5 days away from being 8 months old. dying here. i'll post his 8 month letter on friday!

happy sunday peeps.