My pink hydrangeas - or finding beauty in the unexpected.

I sat in my backyard.  It was my 33rd birthday.  It had been an odd day - overcast, patches of rain, yet moments of lovely sunshine.  And that was how I felt inside - somewhat gloomy, a few sudden tears, but peaks of gratitude and happiness.

I looked around my backyard - and realized, really for the first time, that this was mine now.  Not "ours" - but mine.  How very different it looked from when my ex-husband and I bought it 6 years ago.  How very different my life looked...

My gaze fell on my Hydrangea bush, which I had basically bought for myself as a mother's day present a few years ago.  I fell in love with it at the garden shop - its beautiful blue blooms.  I was so excited to plant it, and have freshly clipped blue hydrangea bushels on my table and in my yard.  But one year, I cut the blooms incorrectly.  Last year, it did not bloom at all...  I thought perhaps it was gone for good.

But just recently, it had started blooming again - in pink!

So very different than when I had bought it! Like this backyard, so very different with the addition of kid toys, playhouses, new plants, and a painted shed.  Like the house, so very different with the new floors, and bathroom, and one less resident.  Like my life.  So very, very different...

Looking at my hydrangea bush, I was struck by the simple truth of my life.  This wasn't the life I thought I was signing up for - but god, isn't it beautiful?!!

Even if it is pink.

:)

Beautiful.

I was holding and playing with my 4 year old.  I let myself  just take the time to look deep into his bright, blue eyes, and he took my breath away.  Without thinking, I exclaimed "god, you are beautiful!"

And then it hit me.  Those eyes of his - that appear blue, but when you really get lost in them show dapples of grey and speckles of green, those eyes that are happy and deep, those gorgeous eyes - those he got from ME.  My eyes reflected back in the eyes of my first-born.

So, maybe that's it.  The reason we have children.  Not only to learn how to love another person unconditionally, to see another person as truly, imperfectly-perfectly beautiful.  But to realize that WE also are truly, and imperfectly-perfectly beautiful, too.