I love love!

I am a wreck tonight.

Not for usual reasons.

Dallin bought tickets for a Father/Daughter Ball in Raymond tonight. He kept the details a surprise from Eva and only told her to dress up in her fanciest ball gown for the night. She has NOT been able to talk to me about anything else. We planned everything days in advance... the dress, the shoes, right down to the necklace she'd wear and could she please wear some of Mommy's special ruby red lipstick? (yes, she could). I knew my heart would be warmed but I didn't expect this.

Maybe it's because I've never been here before so I have no basis for comparison. No precedent. Nada. After Eva's dad left - a mere month after her birth - I always pined for a partner who would love Eva as his own. A father who would teach her things I couldn't, who would be her safe place, who would tickle her and wrestle her, who would teach her math and life lessons and threaten to beat up boys that she likes.... all of those glorious things I coveted with a passion bordering on insanity. No, really. It clouded my judgement. I wanted these things so badly for us that I continually introduced idiot after douche bag after jerk face into our fledgling family unit. Like so many of the dresses Eva and I pored over, trying to find JUST the right one; I held up new boyfriend after new boyfriend for her - "This one? Okay... no. Maybe this one? Hmmm... okay, this one for sure! No?" Hmm... I was doing something terribly wrong. It ended horribly.

But then. Then there was Dallin. Dallin IS my happy ending. It sounds so cliché and fanatical, I know. Maybe it's raging female emotions. Maybe not. But there is something about Dallin - something that he does that none of the others could do. And oh, how they tried. Maybe it's in how he is with Eva. He just IS with her. There's no pretentiousness. No acting. No slide long glances to see if Mom saw how sweet he just was with her and will that earn him any brownie points later? When he is with her, he is with HER. And she knows it. And that is why I'm a wreck. Every little girl deserves that relationship with her Daddy and, finally, FINALLY, Eva has it.

I was always so jealous of what (some) other couples took for granted. The ease in which they were able to give the most fundamental of gifts to their children; both biological parents. It doesn't even register to some as a gift that they are lucky to give, but trust me, from the outside, it is HUGE. Yet I feel such gratitude for the ease in which Dallin and Eva dance together as father and daughter... it seems as natural as any relationship I've ever witnessed.... and I hope it will remain as time goes on. They are both so invested in each other and it has made me realize this very basic, simple, yet overlooked principle in life -

Love is love. Love doesn't have physical, psychological, social constraints. Love doesn't care what your genes are, what your shape, size, age, gender, culture or race is. Love is love. Eva and Dallin share 0 genes. They are fostering a parent/child relationship with nothing to go on other then a mutual, real love for each other with no coercion, no obligation, nothing. It is beautiful to watch and conceive! Their love is just love.

Dallin is NOT the picture of the man I thought I'd be with. Ohhhh HAIL nah. If the guys I dated were... I dunno, fruit; I only dated apples and Dallin is like... a tomato. Like, wasn't even on my radar as a fruit. I mean candidate. I mean... I don't know what I mean. All the guys I dated were university schooled, clean cut, skinny, with a sharp wit and sharp passions. Then along comes Dallin. Homeless. Bathing in a lake. Snowplow operator. Landscaper. Hitchhiker. Hunter.  Redneck.  Duck Dynasty beard.  Dreadlocked skullet. Carefree AF. With rough hands, loud voice and a borderline naïve sense of someone who has little to hide and even littler to prove to anyone. What he is made of spoke to what I am made of - and that was it. Nothing else mattered then and it doesn't matter now. Doesn't matter how many times I cringe - at his volume, his style, his carefree attitude about hygiene and parenting and lawn care, his redneck camo clothes with holes in them and crocs with socks and refusal to shave off that bloody skullet - all of that matters little. Because love is love.

Dallin isn't like an unpolished gem - he doesn't NEED polishing. If I wanted to polish him, I would end up tarnishing our love. All the other men where just glitzed up piles of... turds. They were turds. Turds with fancy degrees and hair gel and cologne.

Finding a love like this has made me a much more understanding person. I used to believe in definitions of love - as some people still do - definitions of love being limited to this person and that person, this type and that type... to what purpose? Little, in my mind. Does judging their love improve my own? No. Of course not. If anything, the negativity impedes it. I love Dallin beyond any logical reasoning and he loves me beyond the same. Love is love.

Love is an OCD single mom and a homeless redneck making a family.
Love is those two women going against the grain and casting off preconceived definitions.
Love is two human beings loving each others souls and caring not for what shell they are encased in.
Love is a man and a woman sticking together through trial after trial for themselves, for each other, for their children.
Love is loving your partner not when they make all the right decisions - but when they mess up and make the WRONG ones.
Love is the elderly couple after 60 years - who still come out to family gatherings and play 'Big Booty'.
Love is taking care of your partners health and needs - even if they kinda hate you for it.

Love is all these things and more.

And so here I am, musing as usual. And off they are, that big stinky man with that little girl dearest to my heart - a part of me chipped off from the best parts of me. And he is loving her and raising her and helping her and nurturing her... and it does indescribable things to my heart. Its' as if he plows along - bursting my heart into tiny puffs of dandelion fluff, shimmering and piercing all parts of my feeling yet all the while sewing up the parts of my heart left damaged, hurt, unsure, scared.

In a world that is going crazy with mindless posts, pictures, gifs, memes, Netflix and chill... where the internet is a stage for anyone to get up and spew feckless opinions about this and that, and what is acceptable and what is not... scrolling and scrolling to find just that perfect outrage to get worked up over... can't we just go back to the basics? Instead of going OUT OUT OUT - let's look back in. To our own families. Our own loves.

I love my loves. Even when - scratch that - ESPECIALLY when they are imperfect.

And I know you all do too. :)