love big. love hard.
We lost much this past year.
We lost graduations and weddings and funerals. Backyard barbecues and big Thanksgiving dinners.
We lost our sense of normalcy, our sense of connection – physical and emotional. We lost the security of schools and jobs and routines and the daily interactions we didn’t realize meant so much.
We lost faith. In our institutions, in the people ho were entrusted to run them, in our fellow man. We lost the idea of absolute truth. Of science. Of civil responsibility.
We all have roles that require more of us than we think we have to give. Not because we are martyrs but because there are people and events that are bigger and more important than we are.
This is one of those times.
And while it is tempting – while it is human nature in fact – to curl into a ball on the bathroom floor and curse the fate that has befallen us, we must rather pick ourselves up and simply do what must be done, however best we can do it.
So go ahead and eat all the Oreos and the Doritos and whatever makes you happy. But also eat some vegetables every once in awhile because they’ll make you feel better.
You are their first home. Your breath is theirs. Your food is theirs. Your body is the sanctuary in which they grow, protected, until they can live in the world.
From the moment they enter this world, arms and feet flailing against the cold brutish air, you are the home of security. Your chest is their first bed, your arms their transportation, your voice their solace. When they can no longer climb into your lap, they will find comfort in the sight of your face across the table, the space you give them to talk without judgment, and your unconditional love.
You are the home of their treasures. Your pockets hold sticks and rocks found at the playground. Your refrigerator doors display their artwork and awards. Your videos store moments of glory on stage, on the field, at a podium. Your heart catalogues all the things they will forget.
You are the home of secrets whispered in the dark, trusted with the most intimate thoughts in their minds.
You are the home of answers. Small questions like “where are my shoes?” and “can I have a snack?” eventually make way for bigger questions about life and death and sex and love. And if you answer them fully and honestly – if you trust in their power to grasp the truth and the consequences of that knowledge – they will always come to you first.
You are the home of tradition. The keeper of memories, the hider of eggs, the wrapper of presents, the baker of birthday cakes, the stasher of money under the pillow in exchange for a tooth, the thrower of balls in the backyard, the picker of pumpkins.
You are the home of comfort. Skinned knees made better with a kiss. Chubby legs curled up in your lap. The smell of dinner wafting through the house. A hand on their back rising and falling with their breath until they fall asleep.
One day they will move from the confines of your four walls. But you will always be their touchstone, their resource, their comfort.
You will always be home. Because you loved them hard. Even when it was hard.
#LoveHard
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Marriage is hard. Not hard like when our babies were young. When hard meant tired half-conversations that took place as we passed each other in hallways and meals scarfed down in turns, not together.
No, this season of marriage is hard because when you emerge from that tunnel of exhaustion, you have to re-learn how to have a relationship that involves just the two of you. You can barely remember what you said to each other before you had kids and the problems you have to work through aren’t just overlooking those pecadillos and quirky personality traits. You learn what for better or worse really means in a way that you couldn’t anticipate when you first uttered those vows.
This season of parenting is hard. Not hard like sleepless babies and tantrums. This is hard because you’re navigating big feelings, big confusion, and big questions in bodies too small to accommodate them.
This season of parenting is hard not because you’re holding your baby and you don’t know why they’re crying but because you know *exactly* why they’re crying and you know that you can’t kiss away their their hurts anymore. Because they’re finding out all the ways in which people can hurt each other. The ways the world can hurt.
And that is harder than anything I’ve ever done.
Friendship is hard. Not hard like when you were young and stupid and a careless word or a snub made you feel left out.
This season of friendship is hard because you thought when you got here it would stop. But it doesn’t. And it hurts worse because when you’re this old, people should know better.
This season of friendship is hard because your friends are getting sick. They’re getting divorced. They’re losing parents. They’re losing each other. And you know a mix tape or a collage isn’t going to fix it anymore.
Life is hard. Not hard like when you had student loans and big questions about who you wanted to be and where you wanted to go.
No, life is hard now because you have house loans and car loans and tuition and, according to the calculator on your financial planner’s website, you will apparently never have enough money for retirement.
Life is hard because you have finally gotten what you have been working for. What you thought you wanted. And you honestly wonder if it was worth it. If you still want it. If you sacrificed too much. And those big questions about who you want to be and where you want to go are still there.
Love is hard because you’re going to more funerals than weddings. You are losing your parents, your siblings, your friends. And you know this is just the beginning. And you realize – in a way your younger self could never appreciate – how much you could lose at any second. And like all the muscles in your body, your heart isn’t as flexible as it once was.
Here’s the thing. Every season of life is hard. They’re just different kinds of hard.
And the best that you can do, I think, when it seems too hard, is remember that you once thought another season was too hard for you to bear. But you did. You got through it. And you’ll get through this too.
But only if you talk about it. With your spouse, with your kids, with your parents, with your friends. With yourself. And if you don’t have any of those things, then talk to me.
We have to stop only talking about the parts of life that are pretty and safe and uncomplicated. Those things are good but they are only part of us.
And the truth is, it is in the hard things that we also find the beautiful – the reason we fell in love to begin with, the inexplicable joy that our children gift to us, the comfort of a true friendship.
The truth is, our cuts and bruises and scars are just a reminder that we are still alive. They are the price we pay for loving hard.
It is through the hard that we love hard and are loved hard in return.
#LoveHard
#LoveWhatMatters
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Friday night, I put on my Lucky Orange Pants for the last time this season. I didn’t know it at the time, although I suppose I imagined it was a possibility. That is, after all, the nature of the post-season. Survive and advance or lose and go home. But truthfully there wasn’t a part of me that believed that Friday would be the end. No, I was intoxicated by the belief that this was the season Virginia was destined to win it all.
But this isn’t a post about basketball. It’s a post about love. About family. About hope.
I have always been the girl who believed, no matter the odds, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how loud the voice of caution rang in the back of my head. I believe that the good guy will always finish first. I believe that love always wins. I believe in the storybook ending.
An old friend once referred to it as innocence. He said it with a slight trace of pity, as if I just didn’t know better. I worry that it will break your heart one day, he said.
And it did. Though not in the way he expected.
It was a doctor who stood in a hospital corridor, looked in my eyes which were begging him to tell me the impossible, and said softly, There was nothing more we could do.
That does something to a person. It did something to me.
I am not talking about the obvious ways you would expect to be changed by the death of a parent or affected by witnessing a trauma instead of just hearing about it. No, I mean the way in which your psyche is fundamentally altered when you have spent the currency of every last hope, every prayer, and every last dream believing in a miracle that does not come.
That is what it feels like to have your heart break.
And in that moment what you need is something to believe in again.
For better or worse, since my dad died, I have placed the full force of my love, the weight of my grief, and the survival of my last shred of hope on the Virginia basketball team. I wore that team like a mantle upon my neck the way my son wears his blanket like a superhero’s cape. They gave me an outlet for all the emotions like joy and hope that seemed to have no place in my new life and, in losing, a conduit to grieve all that I had lost. More than that, they gave me a bridge between my past and my present – a communion of the love that was born on my father’s lap 36 years ago and now courses through the veins of my boys.
And the truth is, in my heart I believed – I really believed – that somehow winning a national championship would be the final victorious chapter in my storybook of grief. A heavenly sign from my dad that I had survived and advanced.
But as the clock ticked down on the greatest upset in college basketball history, I knew there would be no storybook ending.
And when that happens, you can let the loss define you. You can dwell in the misery of wondering what might have been. You can equate falling with failure. You can give up on the storybook ending.
Or…
Or you can remember that success is not measured by a day. That life doesn’t always go according to plan. That loss is an outcome, not the end.
The truth is, sometimes the greatest success is getting back up after we have been knocked down and having the courage to believe one more time. And I would rather be the girl who believes in everything, even if it breaks my heart, than the girl who believes in nothing.
We fall and we get back up and we do it again. And again. And again. Because for every thousand times we fall, there is one where we fly.
Because we remember that falling hard is the price we pay for loving hard.
Friday night at midnight – after we got back to the hotel, after the tears had subsided – the boys decided we should send a text to Coach Ron. Even in their own grief, they knew someone else was hurting more. This is what they asked me to write:
“We know it might not help but we love you and we’re proud of you. You had the greatest season in ACC history. We were here with you tonight and we always will be.”
And for the first time that night, I cried.
Because that’s what real love is, isn’t it? Caring about someone else more than ourself. Allowing ourselves to celebrate the good in the midst of the bad. Knowing that even when we don’t have the answers, sometimes all we need to do is reach out our hand and say “I am here with you. And I always will be.” Believing when it is hard to believe.
This isn’t a post about basketball. It’s a post about love. About hope. About family.
Because even when we lose, we survive and advance.
#LoveHard
#Wahoowa
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Valentine’s Day is my kind of day. Not just because of the proliferation of chocolate or the explosion of hearts cut out of construction paper. No, I love Valentine’s Day because it is a day devoted to loving hard.
I firmly believe that small acts of love and kindness change the world, one moment at a time. One person at a time. I believe in the intimacy of words and the poetry of those small tokens of affection we bestow on friend, foe, and stranger alike.
I understand the allure of random acts of kindness. I appreciate the nobility in gestures big and small offered with no expectation of recognition or reward. But while it is nice to pay for someone’s dinner, to pay for their coffee, or to give anonymously, if we’re honest with ourselves, that’s often the easy way out. We can pat ourselves on the back for doing something good without having to get involved.
But if I’ve learned anything over the last 41 years, it is that happiness begins with the interactions we have with each other every day. And more often than not, what people really need is not a 5 dollar cup of coffee, but 5 minutes of human connection.
While our close relationships with friends and family are paramount to our happiness, it is equally true that our random interactions with strangers and acquaintances make us feel part of a bigger community.
A communion of souls who belong to each other.
When we belong to each other, it is so much easier to shoulder your burdens, to face your fears, to push through your struggles because you know you are not alone.
When we belong to each other, it is so much harder to disparage, to dismiss, to covet, to hate.
When we belong to each other, that is when we start having conversations instead of arguments.
When we belong to each other, that is when we start to change the world.
What if we all decided to be intentional with our love? To share it with everyone we meet instead of a select few. To remember that love isn’t in the grand gesture but in those small moments when we share a piece of our soul with another human being and they have the courage to share theirs right back.
To realize that our everyday interactions have the power to change one person’s day. One person’s heart.
I hope you’ll accept the challenge to spread love this February (click on the picture below for a link to download your free Love Hard calendar). They are simple tasks but they require your intention and your presence. Loving hard is more than bestowing anonymous acts of kindness. Loving hard is about making a connection with the human beings around you.
Loving hard is about saying “I see you. You matter.”
Imagine what we can do if we all love each other hard…
Click on the picture to download your free copy!
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#LoveHard
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We expend so much emotional capital waiting.
Waiting for the weekend, for a new job, for when we have more money, for Christmas, for the right timing, for some magical time and place where the stars align.
But the truth is, friends, happiness isn’t a destination. It isn’t a date on the calendar. It certainly isn’t a notch we check off on the imaginary to do list of life. And all that waiting just blinds us to the happiness staring us right in the face.
Don’t wait for Christmas to make your house glitter with lights.
Don’t wait until you lose ten pounds to put on a bathing suit.
Don’t wait for a special occasion to use your fancy china.
Don’t wait for a birthday to eat cake.
Don’t wait until your kids are older to enjoy their company.
Don’t wait to have friends over until your house is immaculately clean.
Don’t be tricked into thinking I’ll be happy when…
There is no perfect time. There is no magical day happiness will walk up and knock on your door.
Stop whatever you’re doing right now. Just stop. Take a breath and look. It’s all around you.
It’s in unexpected snowfall and lazy days on the beach.
In the first lick of an ice cream cone and the first sip of your morning coffee.
In the hand that rests on the small of your back and the smile of a stranger on the street.
In the Tuesday night impromptu dance party and the kind of laughter that makes your sides hurt.
In the way that your kids make up after they fight and the comfort of a friend who knows what you’re thinking before you can open your mouth.
In the mountain of casserole dishes lining your counters after you’ve had a new baby and the handwritten notes that slip through your mail slot when you lose someone you love.
In the wafting scent of spaghetti sauce from your stove and the sound of rain falling on your roof.
In the puppy curled at your feet and the sight of your parents holding hands.
In the grace of forgiveness and the gift of acceptance.
In those small moments when someone has the courage to share a piece of their soul with you and you share a piece of yours back.
In loving hard and knowing you are loved in return.
That is the greatest happiness there is friends.
Don’t wait. Don’t wait for Friday. For Christmas. For that promotion. For an apology that will never come. For other people to validate you. For a magical date on the calendar.
Don’t wait for the days to pass you by in a blur thinking that something on the horizon will finally be the key to happiness.
Stop waiting. Start looking. Happiness is all around you.
#LoveHard
#LookHarder
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When Billy and I got engaged, we immediately leapt upon the idea of a winter wedding, both because of our mutual disdain for sweating and my blisters.
But as seemingly befalls all Reeves events that are geared toward cold weather, it was a balmy 75 degrees in Charlottesville 14 years ago today. While others were gleeful at the springlike weather, I had a momentary twinge of disappointment that there was no snow falling from the sky on January 3rd.
We could do nothing but laugh at the irony of dancing to “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” as small beads of sweat formed on our foreheads and my father cajoled Farmington Country Club to turn the air conditioning on full blast to keep our snowflake cake from melting.
It wasn’t the first time that things didn’t go as planned and it wasn’t the last.
We didn’t plan to leave DC as soon as we did. We didn’t plan to stay in our first house ten years. We didn’t plan on Billy leaving his firm to start his own.
We didn’t plan on being disappointed by people we love. By each other. We didn’t plan on losing two parents in two years.
When your first born says he wants a date night with you – just you – you scrap your holiday party plans and trade your cocktail dress for your Lucky Orange Pants to drive to Charlottesville for this.
In those early days, when your babies want you, just you, all of the time, it can be exhausting. And you think there isn’t enough of you, just you, to go around. You feel like you are not enough. For your children. Your spouse. Your parents. Your friends. Yourself.
The older they get, the more they let go. The more they rely on a tapestry of people to hold their hand as they navigate the waters of childhood. Like they’re supposed to.
We make things. A million times a day.
We make beds and appointments and late night trips to the drugstore for ibuprofen.
We make time, even when there is none. For the school project. For the friend who needs to feel loved. For the little hands reaching up for help.
We make meals. Sometimes 3 different ones on the same night. Sometimes it’s a stop at a drive-thru. Sometimes it’s an all-day elaborate affair.
We make mistakes. We fumble and fall and fail. Sometimes we laugh them off. Sometimes we see the lesson, even if it stings. Sometimes we make things worse.
I am a failure in a hundred ways every day, but I think I am victorious at more.
I am loud and opinionated and at times bursting with bravado. Yet a careless word or a cold shoulder brings me to my knees.
I am a mother, a keeper, and a fixer but I am also a child, dazzled by multicolored lights and desperately wanting someone to tell me everything is going to be okay.
I am a rule follower, a stickler for details, yet I am always ten minutes late and perpetually forgetful.
I am the product of my DNA but also of circumstance, of experience, of coincidence, and those who have loved me by choice.
I am forgiving to my own detriment for transgressions committed against me but I am unable to get past wrongs done to those I love.
I am confident in my own skin but I am also plagued with doubt about whether I am the mother, the wife, the daughter, the friend, the person I think I should be.
I am too much coffee, too much chocolate but I am equally whiny that my pants are too tight.
I am pajama pants on Friday night but black tie on Saturday.
I am at once questioning and answering, doubting and believing.
I am all the things and none of the things.
I am even-keeled and chaotic, apathetic and passionate, joyful and melancholy, good and bad. And sometimes I am all those things at the exact same time.
We all are.
And the truth is, we don’t have to be one or the other. We don’t have to define ourselves by a day, by a mood, by a flaw, or a contradiction.
The truth is, it is those very contradictions which make us interesting. Which make life worth living.
We just need to try to do the best we can, with what we can, today.
And today I choose to love hard.
#LoveHard
#LoveWhatMatters
I am the keeper.
I am the keeper of schedules. Of practices, games, and lessons. Of projects, parties, and dinners. Of appointments and homework assignments.
I am the keeper of information. Who needs food 5 minutes before a meltdown occurs and who needs space when he gets angry. Whether there are clean clothes, whether bills are paid, and whether we are out of milk.
I am the keeper of solutions. Of bandaids and sewing kits and snacks in my purse. But also of emotional balms and metaphorical security blankets.
I am the keeper of preferences. Of likes and dislikes. Of nightly rituals and food aversions.
I am the keeper of reminders. To be kind, to pick up their trash, to do their dishes, to do their homework, to hold open doors and write thank you notes.
I am the keeper of rituals and memories. Of pumpkin patches and Easter egg hunts. I am the taker of pictures, the collector of special ornaments, and the writer of letters.
I am the keeper of emotional security. The repository of comfort, the navigator of bad moods, the holder of secrets and the soother of fears.
I am the keeper of the peace. The mediator of fights, the arbiter of disputes, the facilitator of language, the handler of differing personalities.
I am the keeper of worry. Theirs and my own.
I am the keeper of the good and the bad, the big and the small, the beautiful and the hard.
Most of the time, the weight of these things I keep resembles the upper elements on the periodic table – lighter than air, buoying me with a sense of purpose. It’s what I signed up for. It’s the one thing I am really good at.
But sometimes the weight of these things I keep pulls me down below the surface until I am kicking and struggling to break the surface and gasp for breath.
Becsuse these things I keep are constantly flickering in the back of my brain, waiting to be forgotten. They scatter my thoughts and keep me awake long past my bedtime.
Because all these things I keep are invisible, intangible. They go unnoticed and unacknowledged until they are missed. They are not graded or peer reviewed or ruled on by a court. And sometimes they are taken for granted.
To all of you who are keepers, I see you.
I know the weight of the things you keep.
I know the invisible work you do—which doesn’t come with a pay check or sick leave—is what makes the world go round.
I see you.
And I salute you.
#LoveHard
241 years ago, our founders created a country based on the radical view that liberty was not doled out by a self-aggrandizing monarch but was an inalienable right. The heirs of that spirit of liberty fought a Civil War to protect it, to declare it sacrosanct.
80 years later, another generation volunteered in droves to safeguard that same spirit for men and women across the world that they had never met. They knew, perhaps better than anyone in history, that it wasn’t just the fate of the war that hinged on their utter selflessness. It was the fate of humanity.
20 years later, men and women gave their lives for another civil war. One that wasn’t fought on rolling hills of grass but on the steps of schools, the seats of a bus, and the stools of lunch counters.
Evil knows no geographical boundaries. It is not confined to one race, one gender, one country. But neither is love. Neither is the fervent belief that liberty and justice belong to all and not just a few.
Since its inception, since its radical birth on the tongues and pens of Enlightenment thinkers, this country has seen its share of evil but it has also always been filled with men and women who believe that humanity is worth fighting for. Who choose to call evil by its name. Not just when it is easy but also when it is hard.
Meeting hate with hate will always end with more hate. At some point, it is not enough to isolate it, to sweep it to the side, to disenfranchise the people you find abhorrent. Truman and Churchill recognized this. They knew that in order to build a new world order from the ashes of Europe, they could not afford to repeat the mistakes they made after World War I, when punitive measures were the only party favors doled out.
They had to give those who some viewed as wretched and undeserving the tools to build a different life and, more importantly, the will to see the possibility of that different life.
They met hatred with grace.
Yes evil needs to be decried. And yes punitive measures need to be taken. But that isn’t enough. If we are going to change the course of history instead of repeating it, we have to do more.
You don’t change the minds of people with hate. You change it with love. If you want to get all biblical, that’s kind of the point Jesus was trying to make.
When my kids are fighting, I always ask them two simple questions: What is your goal? And are your actions getting you closer to that goal?
Is your goal simply to punish people who have hate in their hearts or is it to change their minds? You can tell them to get out of our state. You can tell them they don’t belong here. And you may be right but that doesn’t solve the problem. It just moves it. It pushes it into someone else’s back yard.
So if your goal is to have a community or a world in which people don’t hate other people for the way they look, the people they love, or the religion they practice, then ask yourselves how do we get there?
How do we change the mind of a man who is brandishing a tiki torch from Home Depot and spewing slurs at people he doesn’t know?
I don’t know the answer but it’s going to take a lot of courageous people to show grace alongside of indignation. To meet the hatred with love.
It’s radical for sure. It isn’t easy. It will make you uncomfortable. And it will take time. But mostly it will take grace.
Charlottesville is my special place. It is where I met my husband and where we got married. It is where I studied the law I so revere. It is where I feel my dad next to me and my boys every Saturday in the fall. It is where a basketball team and their coaches gave me a court on which to mourn my loss and celebrate our love.
Charlottesville is my grace. Where I give it and I receive it. It is where I love the hardest.
May it give us all the grace to love hard in the days and weeks ahead.
#charlottesville
#LoveHard
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The nurse wouldn’t even let me through the doors of pre-op until she had slapped a bright yellow bracelet on my arm proclaiming FALL RISK. Honestly, I didn’t know whether to be insulted or impressed that she knew me so well. I went with the latter.
If there are two better words in the English language to describe me, I haven’t yet found them.
I am, of course, a literal fall risk, even when I’m not on anesthesia. I am clumsy and uncoordinated. I fall down stairs. I fall off my bike. I trip on chair legs, sidewalks, even air. I prefer to think of it as a talent rather than a liability. At any given time my body is adorned with more bruises than jewelry and, usually, I have no idea where they came from.
When you lose someone, everyone is quick to tell you, in soft voices laden with reassurance, that you will forget. That time anesthetizes the sharp pains that disrupt your sleep and interrupt the most mundane moments of your day.
And they’re absolutely right.
But what they don’t tell you is that the forgetting hurts as much as the initial loss. That in the forgetting, you lose another piece of that which you have already lost.
That the resilience that propelled you through the gasping breaths of panic and the heaving sobs of loneliness is a double-edged sword.
It doesn’t happen all at once, but bit by bit. Time slowly erodes the trauma of the loss itself until the scale slowly tips the other way. Until it is not the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing you think about as you drift off to sleep.