Beauty is truth and truth beauty.

We got to visit the zoo with one of my dear fellow Floridians on Friday.  Dana was one of my BFF's in high school and college, and we're fortunate enough to live like 40 minutes away from each other now.  Although we both dream about returning to Florida,  it is still pretty nice here in sunny Southern California. 

It is kind of crazy to think Dana and I aren't the teenagers we used to be with all our constant boy drama!  Sometimes it seems like an alternate reality, and a little bit surreal.  Here we are, both married, both mothers, both living in California, taking a stroll around the zoo, doing our thing.   I keep thinking about how life is such a whirlwind lately.  You can't blink, or you just might miss something.  Sometimes it is hard, and you want to close your eyes so badly, but every stage of life is beautiful.  And sometimes beautiful things can break your heart, like a sad song, or the end of Romeo and Juliet (or season 3 of Downton Abbey for that matter!).  Sometimes beautiful things can be a little bit scary like a lightening storm, or maybe kissing someone that you aren't sure feels the same way about you.

Beauty has a little more depth, and maybe a little bit more life experience than prettiness.  Just like having joy means a little more than being happy or excited. Beauty is something that connects with our heart and pulls us towards it.  It's a truth of life that we learn to recognize as we grow into whoever we are becoming.  I'm trying to not get all philosophical here, and I don't think it's working, and I think this post has also gone way off course.   But to sum up my thoughts--Sometimes, if I am being honest with you, I get jealous of other people.  I think that maybe I missed out on something, or I wish I had worked harder on such and such thing, or that I had taken a risk way back when.  Guess what though?  Just because their life is beautiful, doesn't mean mine isn't.  It really is, and I really do love it.  I mean, look at my last post.  Nothing is more beautiful to me than that first picture.  And that in the end, is all that really matters.  I see the beauty in my own life.  And I hope that you do too.

I realize my above tangent has absolutely NOTHING to do with the zoo, but sometimes words start pouring out of my finger tips and there's little I can do to stop them, so there you go.  On a more zoo related note, London clapped her little hands with glee every time she saw an animal, and then cried every time we had to leave an exhibit for the next.  I love this precious baby girl.

[The title of this post is from Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats]