When I first announced this project to my family, first to my husband, for whom I had done a similar project right after we had our first baby girl, and then to my teenagers, it was only my 17 year old who wondered aloud whether it was possible for me to find 365 reasons that I love her and her sister. And, while my husband has not questioned my ability, he was wondered aloud whether I might want to consider cutting back on having to do a post each day to which I have adamantly refused (though I did consider it briefly until I recalled my 17 year old’s words that, for me, were filled with a bit of a challenge). Then, the other day, my youngest also wondered aloud if I thought I really could come up with 365 reasons.
I’m not certain whether my husband ever wondered the same thing when I undertook my Love in Marriage challenge back in 2008. What I do know is that the main reasons I opted not to reduce these posts to once a week are because one, my 17 year old intimated that I managed to maintain a post every day when I did the Love in Marriage blog for my husband, and two, because as I have said repeatedly, both here in these posts and to my girls, love is a choice. Love is not a feeling nor is it only an emotion. Rather it is action-based. It involves actively choosing each day to love the people in our lives, which necessitates that we seek and catalog all of the good things in and about those we care about. For me, this means that even on my worst day or my girls’ worst days, I still love them.
Unfortunately, I believe love has been over-romanticized and therefore tends to be misunderstood. Back in 2008, I spent a year uncovering big and small things about my husband that I loved. This current blog challenge truly is no different. Each day, because I am actively looking for them, I uncover big and small things about my teenagers that I love. This concept is not a new one. In fact, in his essay, The Conduct of Life, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “what we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.” In recent years, various influencers have written about and also promoted this idea, reminding us that our focus influences our thoughts, which in turn influences our choices and that what we actively seek out we tend to find more of, and I couldn’t agree more.
As I have moved through the first half of this year, I have indeed discovered more and more reasons why I love these two remarkable young women. Because I focus on their positive qualities so often, those are what I am now more familiar with. It has shifted my perspective so that even on the more challenging days—when I’m a bit more tired than usual or when we are busier than normal or when my patience is in shorter supply than usual—my mind still focuses on and looks for those qualities in my girls that bring me joy and inspire gratitude in me.
The other day it was a rather small and simple moment. After we picked up my husband from his choir rehearsal at church, we took a little extended drive before heading home. As we turned on to one of the back roads, the sunset was blazing brilliantly against the clouds, its colors of bright reds and oranges breathtaking in the distance. As I took it in with a slight smile at the wonder set before me, my oldest asked her sister if she might be able to get a photo with her iPad from her side of the car. I love that my girls are noticers of beauty. I love that they see the wonder around us and celebrate that in their small ways, like wanting to get a picture of it.
While the sun shifted too quickly for my youngest to grab a decent photo while we were driving, I added that sweet moment to the myriad others I have captured and stored away since the beginning of the year. Even without a snapshot, my mind captured the bright sparkle in each of their eyes and the enthusiasm in each of their voices as they marveled at the brilliance before all of us. Such small shared moments indeed remind me that there are more than 365 reasons to love these two teenagers. The lurking question of Can she do it? is not even something I consider as I sit down to this blog each day. How can it not be possible to find those reasons in these two delightful young women?