I didn’t want to, but y’all made me do it!  THE ROYAL WEDDING.  My friend Stephanie wrote this on Facebook today: “There’s so much pomp and circumstance surrounding this Royal Wedding. I hope more so was invested in the marriage itself.”  In general, I find that I get caught up in the big, momentous, occasions in life, often failing to notice the details that make up the whole relationships that brought forth these events.  Engagement instead of relationship, weddings and anniversaries instead of marriage, birth instead of infancy and childhood, divorce instead of compromise, death instead of remembrance and reflection.

In most of my relationships, I have and still do, focus on the next time we see one another, the next action, the next trip we take, the next anniversary, the next _____.  I always relate this to wanting to live fully, but am I living fully in events surrounding these relationships or in the relationships themselves?  I seem to tie one to the other.  Is this something everyone does?  Do I not count my texts, encouragement, quick conversations as part of our relationship, or only when we plan something out?  What is a relationship if not working to communicate with one another in many forms?  What do you believe COUNTS in a relationship?

If I were to base my marriage to Kevin solely on our wedding, I would feel like it was lacking depth.  It was a very cold bitter day, one that did not go exactly as planned.  While it was beautiful, and we had a great time, it was exhausting and emotional.  At times my marriage was the same, but many other times it was looking forward to talking to him at the day’s end, receiving a random “I love you” text, and so on.  Our marriage was not based on our wedding, it was based on the deep level of communication in which we shared.

My current relationship is a similar focus-while I remember the day that we met, which happened to be a big local event, that’s not what “sold me” on staying in the relationship.  It is on the attention and gratitude that each of us gives one another, on the simple pleasures and sometimes the difficulties that push us forward to a deeper level of communication, commitment, and love for one another.

Through Kevin’s death, I have also focused on events, moments in time that signify something big.  Yesterday was exactly 2.5 years since Kevin’s death.  For once, I didn’t mark it in my brain, I let it pass without even realizing until I saw a family picture of him and immediately flashed from the healthy shot of himself to remembering how he looked the day that he died.  Big events.  What happened in between?  Everything.

It’s the moments in between these significant events that make up the entire story, my entire story.  I can focus on the momentous events that happen in life, choosing only to remember them, or I can allow myself to embrace the daily grind and find beauty and solace in those little moments.  It is the little moments that have made me whole, that have completed my story, and will continue to do so.  What’s making up your story?