Angel and I received a very generous act of kindness in the mail- a Starbucks gift card and the message that the card can only be used for us to get coffee together.  We also have free movie passes that I won in school about a year ago that we’ve been meaning to use, but actually lost for a while during our move.  I found them the other day and when we got the Starbucks card, I told Angel that we should go to a movie and get coffee (which we used to do a lot before we were married).  We ended up not going to a movie because we couldn’t agree between Project X and The Vow, but that’s beside the point.

So on Saturday morning we took the dog to Starbucks to enjoy the beautiful weather (sunny, 80, not a cloud in the sky).  We realized about half way there that we forgot the card, had a good laugh about who’s fault it was, and continued on our way.  This random act of kindness and wish that we got coffee together will happen at least twice (or likely more because we are seriously very forgetful people).  I truly appreciate the generosity and reminder to pause day to day life and enjoy being together.

On Saturday, my sister in law and her family suffered a devastating loss.  Having just gone through (possibly) the worst month of my life, the pain of loss is still too fresh in my mind.  So on Sunday I paid our random act of kindness forward, and surprised her with an arrangement of yellow roses.

This weekend made me reflect again upon our recent miscarriage and served as a reminder to me that bad things sometimes happen to good people.  We can deal with them by crawling into our beds, watching sad movies on repeat, and looking for blame, or we can deal with them head on, allow ourselves to be occasionally sad, and then choose to be happy.  I’ve known relationships to suffer when faced with such taxing situations.  I have actively chosen for this to do exactly the opposite.  I’m closer with Angel, closer with my friends, and investing myself into things that make me happy.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

P.S. The quote isn’t ironic.  This was my active thought process when I named my blog in January.