Penny For Your Thoughts

 Someday, I will lose you. I simply hope  that day comes at the end of a life  full of love. Not on your terms, and not on mine, simply on the terms  of time. Instead of  one more month, I hope  it's many years. Someday, I will lose you; you've become my biggest fear. -Emma Lancaster

 Love is the inability to wipe the smile off of my face as the number of hours until your arrival diminishes to minutes. Love is running up to you and smashing my face into your chest, taking that first big deep breath of your scent. Love is the toes of our shoes touching through dinner and soft touches on arms, marveling that you are flesh again. Love is the warmth of your person and kisses on your lips after dozens of kisses blown off my fingers towards you from far away. Love is getting coffee in the morning and pretending we are normal, thinking about how every Saturday could start like this. Love is showing you my new spaces, the places that I have learned. Love is blowing straw wrappers at each other over lunch and memorizing every inch of your face in the process. Love is holding hands in a museum that we wander for hours, happy to be there together. Love is accidentally napping because I heard the sound of your heart tapping with a warm blanket over us and basketball playin...

unconditional love in friendships: growing up growing apart loving forever loved from the start. "tried to change the ending, peter losing wendy." i love you just the same. -Emma Lancaster

 For my 16th birthday, my friends came over and we wreaked havoc on my parents' house in the most epic Nerf gun battle you could ever imagine.  One of the best hugs of my life was when I could finally see my friends again during the summer of 2020. The hardest I've ever laughed was riding in the back of a van, looking at Christmas lights, and noticing that the star at the top of the tree only had four points.  Before He Cheats makes me think of being a kid in the high school music department, singing my heart out to a song that didn't apply to me yet, before taking the stage. Culver's makes me think of the night we found out that our friends were finally dating. The Fault in Our Stars makes me think of pencil annotations and sweetness. I was pranked, and my locker was filled to the brim with plastic water bottles. We all learned the Footloose dance for a show. Every time I see a VR headset, I think of basement hangouts and Five Nights at Freddy's games. The mention ...

 To those who are friends, hello again. To friends from times past, I miss you. How are you? To the people I met in the first week of college, I've been cheering for you from here. To those I knew in high school, I'm cheering for you too. To those I knew in middle and grade school, look how far we've come.  To those who throughout the years have called me weird, I thank you because I am. To those who thought that I was not pretty or anywhere near it, know that beauty cannot define you or me. To those who whispered under their breath when I dared to be brave, be smart, I hope you've learned to use your voice in strength and for good. To those who picked apart my Instagram, did you find what you were looking for? To those who laughed behind my back, where is your true joy now? To those who saw me belittled, iced out, ignored, but did not speak up or to me, I understand why you saved yourselves. To those who watched my weight decline and saw the light leave my eyes, I prom...

 His face is becoming that of the man that my children will love and less of that which I fell in love with as a child myself. His features aren't as soft as they used to be, a bit more rugged and sharp, cut by the edges of one's early 20s. He's taller and broader, with a few days' shadow of stubble on his face that suggests that he's been too weathered to shave yet this week. His eyes, though, are unchanging and youthful and as joyous as they have been this whole time. Though time has molded the shapes of the boy I loved then into the man I love now, time has not changed the single quarter of brown in his eye that is so unique to him. Cheers to the man of hours, to our love, and to our lives. -Emma Lancaster

To move back into the bedroom you moved out of three years ago; To see friends you haven't seen in years; To talk about the friendship you left behind because you were being hurt; To see pictures of what was and know it wasn't love; To see engagement rings on friends at an age younger than your own; To listen to a playlist of summer flashbacks that take you to 5, 6, 7 years ago; These things are to remember love. These things are to remember why you left. These things are to rediscover home. -Emma Lancaster

 How poetic is it that the Holy Father's last day on Earth was spent in a celebration of the resurrected life? It was spent with others. He probably knew he was dying and spent the day addressing the people and being among them. He lived to serve. He perfectly lived the name of "Francis." He was a proponent of love in this world. -Emma Lancaster

What do you do When that was supposed to wreck you And it simply Just  Didn't? When you've felt too much before So you can't feel anymore And the news simply Just  Drops? When your heart begins to shatter In a familiar pattern And your eyes are simply Just Dry? -Emma Lancaster

 And just like that, It's a rainy Sunday morning and you wake up to the love of your life bringing you breakfast in bed, cartoons playing softly in the background of that cozy, warm room where nothing matters but the fact that your whole heart is living, breathing, and sitting next to you. What a beautiful little life you have. -Emma Lancaster

 Day Seven Hundred and Six: My lovely little self who was so broken but healing, I'd like to appreciate her.  She worked so hard to heal from what hurt. Today, I am proud of her. My most interesting stories are not about boys I dated in high school. My biggest accomplishments are truly worth celebrating, as they came from hard work. I have picked the next step for my life and the person I'd like to step into it with. I'm trying so hard to have a relationship with God. I am working every day to find the good, just as I started to nearly two years ago. I am not perfect and I never will be, but they never lie to you when they tell you that things will get better. Today, I danced to songs from the 70s because I wanted to. -Emma Lancaster

 twenty one, you've just begun. but let me say, i'm proud. you're taking time and ignoring lies and you love feeling the sun. -Emma Lancaster

 If the world was gonna end Would you come see me again? Hold my hand until it's our time to go? Whisper softly in my ear, "I'll always love you, my dear," If the world was gonna end? Someday the sky will catch on fire And the one thing I'll desire Is your smile, your hand To hold.  We will dance in the rain And watch it burst into flame.  Someday the sky will catch on fire. If my world was gonna end,  Would you be there my friend? Remembering how we used to dance in the rain? Telling the man up above All about our love If my world was gonna end. -Emma Lancaster

 Celine Dion makes me think of platonic love.  There is so much to be said for platonic love, for a pure and unhurt and beautiful friendship, for girlhood.  It’s all coming back to me now.  We were lip syncing in the kitchen while making pasta for dinner, because college girls don’t know how to make anything else.  We giggled when someone walked into that communal kitchen and looked at us funny for our dancing.  I live for those small moments, the most golden glowing seconds.  The music brings it all back to me, and I smile when I think of those girls, those younger versions of ourselves that only knew love and affection for life and each other.  Those girls are working together to reach their goals now, to get into law and medical schools. What I’d give for another night of simplicity and platonic love. One night of girlhood and kitchen dancing with my best friend.  -Emma Lancaster

 The sun sinks low over water,  rippling with rays. And the sun shines through trees, green with late summer life. And you, you watch it shift. The world turns, you breathe in, you thank the Lord for the air in your lungs, and you breathe out.  Because when the water ripples with unsettling motion it always finds a way to settle  once more. -Emma Lancaster

 I never thought I would have to think about the loss of a celebrity I loved as a child until I was at least thirty. However, here we are. A boyband member passed from this earth. Similar to many others across the world, this passing, while not personal, brings up personal feelings. We all lost a part of our younger selves with the loss of someone famous.  We are forced remember how fleeting light can be. Enjoy the warmth while you have it. Hug your young ones tight today, and be graceful to your younger self. -Emma Lancaster

I miss being 18. She was carefree, she was bold, she was courageous.  She learned so much more than I ever could now.  She felt things so big, she could be sad and bounce back, and she knew what it meant to be persistent. She had a joy for life, an eagerness to keep going, to grow. I don't have much time for feeling anymore, and what a weight that can be. I miss going on walks on nice days.  I miss being excited.  I miss living with my freshman-year roommate. I miss the feeling of tears drying, knowing that it would all turn out okay. I was softer. I miss her. -Emma Lancaster

 nothing makes you appreciate life more than the loss of a precious one. -Emma Lancaster

 Here is to my roaring 20s, to the mistakes that I will make, to the lessons that I will learn, to the people I will love, to the sunsets I will watch, to the life that I will live, and to the life that I will build. Here is to my roaring 20s, to the years that will fall in this decade, to the months that will be spent with love, to the days that will be filled with joy, to the hours that I will pass, to the minutes that I will wish to last forever, to the seconds that I will soak into memory. Here is to my roaring 20s, to the years that will change my life, to the decade that was my childhood dream, to the present moment on the brink of something wonderful. Today, I am 20. What a fantastic thing to be. -Emma Lancaster

 I was listening to a song that made me think of him, when all of a sudden, there was a shooting star.  Goodbyes are always hard to say, even when they're goodbyes that have a "see you later" attached to them. Then, when I was thinking of him again, there was a second shooting star. He's one of the hardest goodbyes I've ever had to say, and I cried three times on the drive home. Then, when I was being a daydreamer and missing him and driving all at the same time, there was a third shooting star.  The universe has a funny way of telling you that it's going to be okay. The next song that played was All Of The Stars by Ed Sheeran. "I saw a shooting star and I thought of you." -Emma Lancaster