Light & Dark.

I've been both struggling with and finding beauty in the fact that so much good and so much bad can coexist. Days full of light and days full of darkness. The heavy weight of sadness and the ease of experiencing joy. 

I was visiting family the morning the news of the mass shootings broke. I was heartbroken and angry and sick to my stomach. That same day, I went out on the boat with my family and had a beautiful day with my sweet baby boy. 

How? How can that be the same world? 

I woke up last week to see one of my precious friends lost her little brother. The very same day, another friend welcome a baby girl to her family. The best day of someone's life, the worst day of someone's life. On the same day. The same 24 hours. How can that be?

Life and death, coexisting in the same day day. 

Happiness and devastation. 

Light and darkness. 

The last year has been the hardest I’ve personally faced yet. A lot of loss, a lot of grief. A lot of hurt and a lot of heartbreak. The last year has also been the most beautiful one - hello, Jack exists, remember?! I've watched him learn and grow and light up my whole life with joy. I went to a conference I've been dreaming of going to. I've chased after my dreams and invested in and believed in myself like never before. I've had nights with friends where we laugh so hard we cry, I've read books that changed my life. I've had beautiful moments. Seen stunning sunsets. Loved and felt love in return in beautiful ways. 

How is that? How is the same year that I thought was unsurvivable, the year where I had to watch those closest to me walk through pain I couldn't imagine...how is that the same year that was so good? The same year that had the best weekends, the best beach days, the best vacations? How? 

How did 31 people wake up to the senseless loss of their family last weekend on the same weekend I watched my son laugh while he rode in an inner tube for the first time? 

The short answer is this: I don't know. 

The long answer is this: I don't freakin' know. 

The hard answer is: I don't know, I don't understand, but life somehow keeps going on. 

Life keeps going on, even though people senselessly were gunned down this week. 

Life keeps going on, even when we think our hearts are too broken to function. 

I FaceTimed my best friend yesterday and we were in our feels about the hard things. We were both crying and said, “how is the same year we had TacoLu lunches where we laughed and dreamed and ate tacos and left feeling so happy the same year all this happened? 

I don’t know why I got so caught up on the tacos. It was very dramatic. But it was just insane to me. How was the year that we spent so many carefree days laughing over tacos the SAME year she lost someone precious to her? How were those dang taco days the same year I didn’t know how my family would survive? 

We cried about it. 

And when we got off the phone, we made plans to go to TacoLu's soon. And I had to laugh at the irony of it. We laugh. We eat tacos. We have beautiful days. We lose people we love. We walk through hardships. We fight the darkness as hard as we can. 

And we eat we laugh. We eat tacos. We have beautiful days. 

I’m not trying to minimize any of the devastation. I know that the beauty we have in no way minimizes your pain. I know this because life is freaking beautiful and it hasn't minimized my pain. But I think it does bring some comfort to know that alongside the pain, beauty is there, and will continue to be there.

Comfort that the morning will always come. There will be a reason to laugh, no matter how small. There will always be a new day that brings new memories with people we love. There will always be sunshine. And laughter. And dreams. 

And tacos.