being happy and empty and full of coldplay

i just want to run and run and run until my legs
won't move anymore
and then i want to lay on the ground and
i want to spread my arms out wide and open my chest
and i want the moon to hug me and tell me i'm ok,
and that i'm ok being alone and that the cotton in the air
and the smoke on the mountain will all be ok.
i want to look at the face of everyone and i want to see everything inside them.
i want it laid out in piles. piles of secrets and
aspirations and dreams.
did you know that God is so real?
did you know that one of the reasons i know He's real is because i know people?
did you know that people are the greatest proof of God
and that people are the greatest proof of the devil?
and he and she and you and i and we and them and all of us get
to choose who we're going to have more of in us.
and if i laid on the ocean and you got to open me up
and you got to hear all of my secrets and all the things i've done,
and the things i want to do, and all the things i've loved.
you would see both in there, that's for sure.
but you would see more of God.
and if i laid on the ocean tomorrow and you opened me up again,
you would see more of God today than you did yesterday.
and i guess that i can't play sports,
and i don't sing very well and i didn't keep practicing the piano.
and i don't like when your far away and i don't like missing everything,
and i don't like that you're so much stronger than me,
and i get frustrated and mad and well, weird.
but i'm trying to let God in more and more.
and i'm trying to see God in you more and more.
and you make me want to let him in more and more every day,
don't you know He's filling you right up?








"and you belong with me, not swallowed in the sea"
love, laura

i hope you said, "thank you"

there's an ideal in people's minds, you know?
especially in mine.
and maybe i didn't picture that ideal to look like this,
you know? maybe it looks purple when i thought it was supposed to be blue,
and i think that's how it feels on this day.
but i'm starting to realize that purple can still be beautiful.
and i owe a lot to the blue part that started my life.
and learning to love a new color is harder than you might think,
but,
i'm getting there.
always getting there.
i love my purple, i love my dad,
no matter what, i love my dad.

but open your ears and listen to me.
if your dad loves you,
and if your mother is his number one,
and if playing catch with you is more important to him
than views and money and magazines and hair,
i hope you said "thank you" today.
i hope you hugged him and wrote him a letter and i hope that you sat on his lap.
i hope you laughed with him all day,
i hope you heard, "i'm proud of you" a couple times, too.
remember how it feels to have that power in your home.
remember stories from work and remember him listening to you sing.
and please, remember how it looks when he holds your mom's hand.
remember all those memories and hold them tight,
and say another "thank you" from me, too.







happy father's day.
love, laura

all that, too.

my life isn't about this thing that i write on,
or about you or about me of about my little brother's ninetendo games.
it's not about fluffies and kitties and puppies
or even the way my hair looks at nighttime, or the way my only freckle is forgotten.
it's not about painting walls, it's not even about smelling flowers,
it's not about running or water bottles or never forgetting your name.
i guess my life is about all of this too,
i guess it's about all of that and more.
my life is more about what happens when i open my mouth and what i'm saying
and what you're saying
and the certain color hue the room seems to turn whenever we're speaking like that.
it's about sunshine and nice-ness
it's about learning how to fix the things about myself that make my nose turn up.
it's about trying to love the things that are right about me, too.
it's about books, and learning, and temples, too.
maybe i has something to do with summertime, and healing, and learning how to be a listener.
maybe it's feeling Heavenly Father's love for me, and feeling your love for me too.
it's about getting older, because it's happening all the time,
but it's about being alive, because if you're alive, getting older doesn't matter, you know?
it's about how i tell myself i'm ok all the time,
i tell myself i don't miss you and don't want to and you're having a good time,
and it's about learning it's ok to not be strong all the time.
i guess it's about colors and laughter and the fact that one of us saw rockets today.
and i said prayers and i took a long shower and for a second i forgot how sore my legs were.
and maybe in that we are ok,
i think somewhere in rockets and "love you"'s and long showers and flowers,
and prayers and prayers and more prayers, too.
i am always going to be ok,
and so are you.





"can't do it alone, i've tried, and i don't know why"
love, laura

if you saw me,

while i'm sleeping and i'm curled up so tight,
if you felt my feet move all night long and they pulled on your baby leg hairs
and the froze up your calves and your tibial nerve, too
would you love me still?
if you saw me when i woke up and my hair was all over my head,
and maybe i didn't get all of last night's adventures off,
and maybe i have little black spots from eyeliner and mascara and other things that i used to feel prettier,
and i have a few yucky bumps growing on my nose and my cheek and my hairline,
if you saw all that, would you still love me?
if you saw me when i lost my cool and i took it out
by being short with my little sister
and i got mad at her for wearing earrings i wasn't going to wear anyways,
would you still love me?
because even if i saw you all sprawled out with your blankets in a mess,
and even if that lovely hair on your head started to fall out
and you maybe looked older and you maybe lost your biceps and you maybe got some dirt
on your face, too,
and even if you were bleeding and tired or were far far away,
and even if the hair grew back on your legs,
and even if you make dumb mistakes every day,
i would still love you. and i would love how real you were.
and even if we got older and weirder,
and i would still love how groggy your voice sounded when you croak out a "goodnight",
and i would scratch all your itches and i would read you good books,
and i would pat your bald head and i would hug you more tight.
cause i love it all and i love all it could become,
because there would just be two of us humans and we'd just be falling in love.








"and you take me the way i am"
love, laura

you and i and we and us and sparkly things, too.

i want to wear a sparkly dress, you know? but then again i don't.
mostly i want to wear a flowy white dress and i want my face to shine like i was wearing a sparkly dress.
i want you to look at me and to know without a doubt that i feel about you so deeply.
i want you to know that my faith is bigger than me and that i'm happy.
i'm happy every day. and i'm learning to forget all the fancy stuff.
the fancy stuff can be the prettiest stuff,
it can make you go fast and look cool and have a better brown shade of skin.
it's amazing because it looks like everything, everything you could ever need and feel,
kind of like a sparkly dress.
and then you get it, and you realize that you still want to go faster,
and look cooler, and you always want to be a darker shade of brown on your skin.
but it doesn't matter because it doesn't fill you up like love fills up your eyes and hair and makes you face shine like a
sparkling dress.
all i want is for you to see all that love flowing out of my eyeballs
and i want you to know that i think you are the most wonderful thing.
i'd give away all the sparkly dresses and faster things and cooler things
and the brown that i don't have on my skin,
just so you would know that i love you and that i'm more happy when i'm
sitting here and laughing with you and hearing you and smelling you and hugging you in comfy clothes.
and whenever i have the sniffles, you're the one that i want right there
and when i itch my eyes i want you to be the one who laughs.
i guess you're part of the simple things,
the simple things are the things worth keeping,
the things we don't have to try for.
the things that just are perfect because they are.
something like sunsets and flowers
and seeds that get put in the earth and somehow they grow.
those are things that never get taken, those are the things that make you feel the most.









"but it's more than one and one makes two."
love, laura