[he] keeps it simple and i am thankful for [his] kind of lovin'

I'm going to have to get a little mushy here but you can just deal.

Now I may or may not be more optimistic and obscenely upbeat than most other people, but I can't help it because I am so supremely happy that I can't keep it in. And why? Because along with everything else I have to be thankful for, I also have the love of someone so intensely wonderful I have a hard time believing my own dumb luck that I get to love him back.

I spent the better part of the last few years looking for that proverbial love and trying to figure myself out, always keeping in mind the two things my mother always told me: "you have to have something to bring to the table" and "never, ever, ever, ever settle". It frustrated me to see people all around me walking hand in hand, all happy and ridiculous. As hopeless a romantic as I was/am, it made me want to slap someone. Envy? Probably. But mostly it just made me sad. Happy for those people but sad nonetheless because all this amazing love wasn't happening to me.

But, c'est la vie right? Without conscious realization I kept paddling along. Suddenly I was walking across the stage in Alumni Park and accepting a diploma from Pepperdine and then, even more suddenly, I was waving goodbye to California and saying hello to no sales tax. I had some incredible life experiences under my belt and I was ready to jump into a new life, a new adventure that I was now prepared for. Brigette and I had these grand plans to forget all of the characters we had haphazardly attempted to date at school and meet some amazing Portland men with black rimmed glasses and Hemingway sticking out of their back pocket.

I took a detour however. I met an amazing Indiana man with dancing eyes and a map of the Columbia River Gorge.

C'est la vie indeed.

My point here is that I am really glad to have this boy in my life. Just knowing him makes me happy and I feel so lucky to call him, along with everything else, my friend. He makes me feel special, he makes me smile at the mere thought of him, he can make me laugh even when the walls are closing in, he has the ability to make me feel remarkably not like an idiot even when I know I'm being ridiculous, the only thing he expects from me is honesty and love... And he gives the same in return.

So maybe I do have my head in the clouds, maybe I am a little goofy, maybe I am young and naive enough to believe that he can seem to me so wonderful but... I don't worry about that so much.

I think he's swell.

I also think The Avett Brothers are phenomenal songwriters. This song has so many little bits in it that make me smile. The simplicity of things, the simple pleasure of just marveling at the person you love because... Because it doesn't matter why. Just that you really love that person for no other reason than they make it easy to love 'em.