Dear Diary,
I was reminded today on TimeHop (I cant believe it goes back over 20 years now!) that it’s been an entire decade since the COVID-19 crisis when we were quarantined at home for months as a family. I vividly remember that season being so, so very hard with two little ones, but these days I find myself longing for those long days of togetherness.
It’s hard to believe that in just a few short months, Brighten will begin high school. How did we get here? It feels like I blinked and she went from running around our backyard in princess dresses while bossing Grady, to a full-blown teenager, while still bossing Grady. She may be embarrassed to be seen with me now, but when we are home and it’s quiet, still, and safe, I still see that sweet, loving, compassionate little girl.
Grady is as active as ever. He is loving playing baseball this spring and he still thinks his big sister hangs the moon — even if he won’t admit it. At 11 years old, he still is okay being seen with Jason and me in public, but I know the day is coming that he’ll want to socially distance himself from his parents. My prayer is that within the safe confines of our home, he still wants to curl up and watch movies with his family and talk to me (nonstop) about what’s going on in his life.
I love that they’ve always remained close friends and look out for each other. When I look back, I remember seeing their friendship start to blossom when they were the only friends they had — during the quarantine. It’s been 10 years of growing together, deepening that friendship, looking out for one another, and also some arguments too. I know the next decade will look much different, as they’ll leave home, begin dating, go off to college, and possibly even get married! But my hope as that this last decade has built a foundation for their friendship that will last for a lifetime.
Jason and I are doing well too. We’ll celebrate our 18 year anniversary this September and we’ll also celebrate 20 years together!
It’s taken some time, but we’ve figured out how to run our own businesses together, and it’s my favorite thing we’ve done professionally. Pulling his videography and my storytelling together has allowed us to flourish creatively and take on such a diverse client portfolio.
I guess I really have the quarantine to thank for that too! Even though it took another five years for Jason to be able to run his videography business full-time, once he was working from home all the time we quickly fell back into our “quaroutine” of allowing each other space to work independently, while also working together. We set up boundaries, but also enjoy rolling ideas off of each other. We love that we have several regular clients and a rolling list of one-off projects. We’re both working well over full time and harder than we ever had before, but that’s what it’s like when you have a waiting list to pull from for new clients each month. It’s better than I could have imagined and I love that I get to manage a small staff of associate writers, designers, videographers, and editors too!
My favorite thing that we do is our annual trip to New York City each year. I love that every other year the kids come with us and we get to experience our favorite places with them. I didn’t think it was possible to love New York more than I already did, but post-COVID New York is exquisitely clean, everyone is so friendly, and it’s become this beacon of hope and light in our country. The way they recovered from such a hard crisis 10 years ago was inspiring to the world, and I can’t wait to go visit this fall with the kids so we can celebrate a decade since their new beginning.
We’ve love living in Birmingham, too. It’s hard to believe we’ve been here since the early 2000s, but I couldn’t imagine raising our family anywhere else but here!
You know, life isn’t perfect. It never has been and it never will be. But 10 years ago we learned to appreciate the small stuff and we developed a posture of gratitude that we’d never had to have before. Aside from God’s sustaining grace, gratitude and family were our lifelines. We learned to look out for one another, appreciate each other’s gifts, manage a slower pace, and we learned vulnerability in the wake of tragedy. We learned that even when it’s not all okay, we can still press in to hope that God is still faithful. These are lessons that were hard to learn, but that dissipate our fears and anxieties among every circumstance.
So far, 2030 has been a great year. I am thankful for the last decade, but also look forward to what the next one has in store for the Morales Family!
