I am the queen of over thinking and over analyzing and making sure I have read every article on the next major life event I am expecting in my life and time and time again life keeps taking all my research, neatly piled and organized, and throwing them up in the air while I sit on the ground trying to catch them all.

Recent events and loses in my life have showed me that life is just too short to spend time preparing for life. There is no preparing and organizing for life, one just has to LIVE it. We cannot go through life perfectly, only uniquely. To cherish life as it is now because life continues to turn its pages on to the next chapter whether we want to or not. Pushing us forward when sometimes all we want to do is go back.

In the last few months the Air Force has decided it was time to start a new chapter in Warner Robins, Georgia. As much as everything inside me would like nothing more then to stop and even sometimes rewind time, I am choosing to embrace it. I am ready to live our lives at its fullest, to cherish it exactly as it is now, slowly letting go of my tendency to want to over prepare for what might come next.

Instead enjoying how my youngest daughter can sit in her room all day, having a dialogue with herself and her dolls, and how my son, at the age of 7, still finds true joy in a pile of dirt and a shovel in his hand. These moments are what I am always most thankful for. Stop and take a moment and enjoy the every day moments of your authentic life. Cherish what is in front of you rather then worrying about what happened yesterday or what’s going to happen tomorrow. Celebrate the unconditional true love of your spouse, children and loved ones around you.

I admit it … I decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving!

To say that I truly love Christmas would still not be enough to really express how much I love this holiday. Growing up I have fond memories of my Mom transforming our home to one that you would find in the Pottery Barn Holiday Catalog, while my Dad cranked up his favorite holiday music. From the pillows on the sofa to the hand towels in the bathrooms … there was no room left untouched. Everything was “Christmased!” As much as they loved the holiday they never once put decorations up before Thanksgiving, so why do I break the tradition?

Over the years I’ve realized that it’s not the decorations, or the presents, or the Cranberry Bliss Bars Starbucks releases that make this year so special to me. It is the romantic-fairytale like state that seems to encompass the whole world that make me truly love this time of year.

How my parents freely danced in the living room to Jingle Bell Rock while hanging wreaths and ribbons on the wall. How more people suddenly get the urge to pay for the order of the person behind them at the Starbucks drive-thru. How I can barely keep it together when I know I have found the perfect present for my husband.

Christmas is when the whole world becomes a little more idealistic, dreams a little bit bigger and basks in the fairy tale wonderland that surrounds them. … so can you blame me if I want to start the season earlier each year?

Our society constantly reminds us that we need to have thicker skin. That being emotional is equal to being a mess. That we must always have our poker face on. I want you to know that those who tell you this, don’t understand that vulnerability is power. Being vulnerable shows strength and courage.

I believe it is more convenient to build imaginary walls to surround ourselves and our weaknesses in, then it is to have no walls. Standing with no walls is more courageous. Leaving ourselves open allows others the chance to truly love us. To love us without any walls, without any boundaries.

When we accept our own vulnerabilities and celebrate them it is easer to accept others and their vulnerabilities, this is unconditional love. This is the love we all want. We want to be loved for all that we are, for our strengths and for our weaknesses.

Isn’t unconditional love what we want in our relationships? Especially when its a relationship we vow to keep til “death do us part”?

I challenge you to open yourself,

to find the courage to stand alone,

to let others see your vulnerability and

to allow others to love you unconditionally.