Memories Framed in Our Minds Like Photographs

 In the past month life has been a crazy awesome adventure. Right before Christmas I flew out to New Mexico to see my best friends and was pleasantly surprised to be surprised by my girl friend being there. My friends had flown her out there so we could

have the whole break together. Surprises like that are wonderful memories made and really mean a lot to me, because it says myfriends really love and care about us! After a few days in New Mexico we flew up to Seattle, Washington to spend Christmas with her family. While we were there I asked Megan to Marry me and she said YES!

Those days leading up to asking her were nerve racking and exciting. After talking to her parents her Dad asked me what I would have done if he had said “No”, and my response was “Well… I guess it would make for a awkward couple of days”. But when her parents said “Yes”, I just felt this huge relief and for the first time in months I could really relax. I had bought the ring a few months ago and sometimes I have a hard time holding a secret, especially when it’s something really exciting. It’s even harder when the secret you are keeping is for someone you love and talk to everyday.

So on December 22, 2012 I could wait no longer, Megan and I went on a date night to Lights of Christmas, which is this christmas light display put on by a camp where Megan use to work. I had the ring in my pocket hoping there might be a place romantic enough, but as we walked around and saw the lights there were just to many people around. From

there we went out to dinner and headed back to her house. When we got there we went out to take pictures under the lights her family had put on in the front yard, after taking a few of our goofy pictures I bent down on a knee while she was looking at the pictures on the camera, as I went to pull out the ring she handed me the camera, I dropped the camera and han

ded her the ring.

The only thing I really remember saying was “Will you marry me Megan and go on this journey of life with me?”, She just smiled at me and said “yes!”

I won’t forget looking back at the house and seeing her parents peaking through the window on the front door as

they oowed and aaahhed. Over the past year Megan and I have taken a lot of pictures and tried to capture the memories

of our time together. One of my favorite songs titled “All the memories” by the band The Classic Crime says

“Oh, all the memories we had
Framed in our minds like photographs
Take a second, take a second
And make this last
Here where the future meets the past
I can never fall in love again
I can never fall in love again”
All our memories are framed like photographs in our minds and hearts. That whole night I was looking for the right spot and the right time to ask. For months I had lost sleep over trying to figure out a plan or what it might look like, but now looking back at it a few weeks later, it was the perfect moment and I couldn’t have planned it. It wasn’t until we were our goofy selves, taking pictures and laughing about the faces we were making that the opportunity was right. I can say, I will never fall in love with anyone again because I found the one that I want to love. Our relationship has been anything but easy, the long distance and short bursts of time that we have been able to spend together over the past year have stretched us and challenged us. It has been emotionally draining at times and everyday we have had to believe and fight for the hope to carry on, but isn’t that what love is all about. About fighting for what we believe in, over everything else and forgiving when it just hurts.

Love isn’t some fluffy idea of an little naked angel on a cloud shooting lonely hearts with arrows. Love isn’t just a word that middle school students throw around to mean whoever they have a crush on that week. Love isn’t just attraction, or a spiritual fruit or 60’s

 rock n’ roll song lyric. Love is not something we will ever fully grasp or understand. Love is giving everything we got, sharing evenwhen it doesn’t seem fair, driving forty miles to find cold medicine when she’s sick, writing letters on what ever paper you can find including paint samples, moving half way across the country in faith that God will close the space between where you and her are because you believe God called you there, Love is calling back five minutes after they said something that made you mad and responding with I love you. Love is always, always, always a learning process that will take more time than we have and always have something new to teach us everyday. My assumptions of trying to understand love have been reshaped by my relationship and everyday is framing new memories to learn from and enjoy.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 15 “A Year of Thoughts”: A Detour is Part of the Adventure

A Detour.

 

For someone to come to or have a detour, it is a mistake or failure or hindrance that must be gone around. But those of you who choose to see the journey as an adventure may find the detour to be an awesome experience, full of the exciting unexpected. Sometimes those detours are forced upon us and other times the detours come from when we miss an exit.

 

Trying to find our way back to the right road can be full of uncertainty, rather frightening, and altogether challenging, but when we see the adventure in the detour, the challenge becomes a learning experience, the scariness becomes a memory, and the uncertainty is changed to confidence as you find your way back.

 

 

So in the past week of driving to New Mexico from Kansas and driving back again, we took two detours. Both of which were from missing an exit. After obtaining three maps, “enjoying” the smell of Dodge (sarcastically speaking, Dodge smells like road kill heaven), fighting everything in me that is a man and asking for directions, our second detour found us in Amarillo, Texas. I thought there would be a sign on the highway that should have pointed us to the road we needed- there quite possibly could have been- but somehow we missed it… and I got to experience a little more of Texas.

 

In detours we learn a lot about each other.

 

 

The challenge of the detours made for a great experience with my best friend. My worries were met with, “Chill, we’ll get there.” My uncertainty was a reminder that life is an experience. We’re human. We make mistakes. But failures and detours are not the end but rather a part of our journey. My life has been full of detours, failures and mistakes but they’re part of who I am. Part of a story I’ll tell my children someday. Some of my detours have allowed me to learn things I’d never thought I’d learn. Some of my detours have allowed me to share life and laughter and create memories with incredible people. Detours created time and space to talk, think and explore.

 

Sometimes when we come to detours, if we’re not thinking of it as an adventure, we find it annoying and time consuming. So… What would it take for us to change our thoughts?

 

To experience the detour?

 

To take life as an adventure?

 

Would we learn more?

 

Would we be challenged to find new ways to do things?

 

Would we be able to face our fears of the unexpected?

 

To be able to take our uncertainties and turn them into confidence?

 

To find hope in making our way back, taking the risk it needs to get there?

 

So next time you come to a detour or think over the detours of your life, choose to see it as a blessing, a part of your journey, and a chance to find adventure.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

 

 

P.S. I dictated this to my best friend Megan Eby while we were driving back to Kansas from New Mexico

Day 14 “A Year of Thoughts”: The Mountains Await…

 

 

The mountains are majestic and breathe taking as we have spent the last few days in New Mexico under the shadow of them rising out from under our feet. I went out for a walk today and found myself staring at them as they rose above the trees, to the shining snowy peaks. As I walked through the snow it soaked through my shoes as I dodged the cactuses poking through.

 

I think I like it here.

 

The culture of the west excites me and the open wilderness breathes

 

ADVENTURE

 

GO West

 

 

 

 

The Mountains Await..

 

– Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 12 “A Year of Thoughts”: A sort Fireside write for a Long Day

Four States, three stops, and a long car trip with my best friend to spend the weekend with my other best friends. Driving through Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and finally made it to New Mexico. The sun set fast over the mountains and shall rise tomorrow…