Day 23: How to love

Day 23, Thursday: Things you've learned that school won't teach you
  Oh this is an easy one huh? Considering I'm a new ish wife and new ish mama. School never taught you to be selfless in a relationship. It never taught you to believe in another person. School was all about building you and only you. Making sure you believed in dreams, goals and challenges. Which is awesome. Building self-concepts in younger soon to be adults is extremely important. But that didn't leave me ready to face the real world just because I had a diploma in my hand and was wearing an awful gold cap and gown.   School did not teach me how to love. How to love your first love, how to love your friends, how to be appreciative, show compassion etc etc etc. I have a laundry list of people I have hurt in those recent years after High School and its only because I didn't know. I wasn't ready to tackle hard relationships. I wanted things to be easy like when Mr. Trusley let you make up a test knowing you purposely skipped class to go get a coffee- (which is so true. How badass am I really?)   But ya live and you learn right? And so I did. The hard way. The really hard way. I lost friendships. I got my heart broken. To pieces. But you know what school taught me? A little thing I mentioned earlier-self concepts.Those kind words teachers tell you over and over to get you believe you are worth something, comes back around to pick you up and make you feel worth it. So that's what I did. I believed in myself and my dreams-I knew what I wanted. Maybe it involved people I hadn't met yet, but I was ready to pick myself up, work hard, be selfless and encounter new adventures in my life.   And I did. And look where I am today. I am a wife to the man that was always mine in the beginning-I just didn't know. School doesn't teach you this..but that little voice in your head during a realationship that whispers this isn't right over and over again. Yeah, you're not crazy. It really isn't right. Even if there is no good reason. Even when everyone tells you this is the guy for you and you guys are so cute, lalalalala. You're not for each other. I ended up trusting that little voice, and look where I am today. In the arms of my prince Husband :)   School doesn't teach you to be a Mom. Although if I lived in the 50's I could have gone to one of those schools that teaches you to be a wife, how to clean, cook and change diapers. Um, NO.   So I learned all on my own. It really is instinct when that little being is in your arms. You immediately check if they are breathing, have boogers, went poo poo etc etc. Still today, I go in Levi's room to make sure he's breathing. I know its a little crazy, but it makes me feel better.   School cannot teach you how to love so selflessly as a mama. It cannot teach you how amazing your heart feels when a little boy wraps his arms around your neck and kisses your cheek, or when he really just wants his mama and you feel needed and loved, by someone who cannot express their love in a way that is black and white.   School didn't teach me how to live my life. There is no fairytale over here at the Hicks household. But it is a home I feel proud of. It is a family I'm proud and choked up to call mine. It is the life that I chose to live.   School may teach us a lot of things, but it doesn't teach us how to love.    

Oldie, but goodie. New year, new baby, new marriage. Love.