Sweet Love

Sometimes love aches.

Not in the way that sore muscles ache two days after some overachieving workout, and not in the way my head aches when it's 2:00 in the afternoon and I somehow missed my morning coffee. Those are such unpleasant, even painful kinds of aches. I'm talking about an aching that is good and sweet and makes love feel so completely tangible.

I felt this just now as I tucked my children into their beds.

It felt like something swelling in my belly, twisting and surging, looking for a way out. It pressed hard against my chest, working its way up to form that lump in my throat. And then I could taste it in my mouth, like some changing mixture, at once all smooth and sweet and velvety, and then salty or sour or something else. It tasted like winged hope and wishes on stars and on-my-knees gratitude and wonder, mixed with die-for-you protectiveness and what-if worry and just plain fear. And I knew it would push its way to the surface, one way or another, sweet or salty.

But if I had let that bitter part of this aching mother's love lead the way out of me, past my lips, it would have turned itself into a sob, a wail, something sad or afraid. So instead I swirled it around and around until it was like honey again, and I breathed it out into kisses on cheeks and foreheads, and sent it from my fingertips onto gently rising chests and through silky strands of hair, and whispered it in murmers to sleepy, small ears.

And that deep, sweet love ache pulled itself back down into me where it always settles, anchoring me, until the next time it churns up from its big, cream-and-sugary vat, catching me offguard, and I'm once again completely undone by it.

Here goes . . . something.

I'm a lot of things.

I am a Christ-follower, wife and mother, and those are most important. I am a daughter, sister, friend, American, teacher by profession (which means I'm an employee and co-worker, too), leader in some circles, follower in others, listener, talker, reader, coffee drinker, singer, thinker, Facebook stalker (really hate to admit that one), sometime worrier, frequent encourager, multi-tasker whenever necessary, late sleeper whenever possible . . . you get the picture.

But there's this other thing I've always wanted to be, since I was in fifth grade, and in my mind I think of myself as this. I think of this as one of the many things I am. But if I'm to be completely honest, I simply cannot put this on that list.

Until today. Because starting today. . . I am a writer.

There. I said it. Out loud, in a manner of speaking. And the funny thing is I'm not sure I even really know what I mean by that. Am I a novelist? No, because I have never written a novel, let alone published one. Am I a children's book author, freelance magazine writer, newspaper columnist? No, for the same reason I'm not a novelist. Oh, I've written plenty of things. Blog posts, newsletters, drama scripts, short stories, poems, term papers, journal entries, emails, training manuals, sermons, ideas for more short stories and novels and children's books and screenplays for the movie of my life story (that last part has mainly been written in my imagination). But even the fact that I've written these things really well doesn't make me a real writer. Do you know what would make me a "real" writer? Writing. Yes, painfully simple, I know. But I've always heard, "Writers write." Not just when they have to for some very practical purpose, but whenever they can and just because. And this is why I am NOT a writer.

Until today. Because starting today . . . I am a writer.

So I'll be writing. Whenever I can. Just because. For starters, I'll write here, on this blog, because if I don't write now, I may never do it at all. And perhaps, by doing so, I'll become what I've always thought I was but have never really been.

Here goes . . . something.