The anniversary dance..

My brain works in a strange way... I can take just about any story or situation and learn from it. I almost always look deeper into things to see what I can take from it and carry with me throughout my life. Living my life absorbing everything around me, the people and sights and sounds and smells,  has just been the way I've always been. So sometimes I might find something in a story that someone else might not. That's where this blog came from...

My wedding photographer job is so fun! I get to meet a lot of different people and see a lot of different things. I've stood around the dance floor capturing more moments of people dancing than I can even count. I've watched many brides and grooms dance their first dance and watched many dad's dance with their daughter on her wedding day, it's all very beautiful. This past weekend the DJ did the Anniversary Dance. I'm sure many of you have seen this. They call out all the married couples to the dance floor and as the song plays, the DJ starts calling out the amount of years being married and as the song plays, couples leave the dance floor, to only leave the couple married the longest dancing on the dance floor alone. I've seen this at many weddings but this one hit me a little different. As the DJ was counting up the years, the couple just kept dancing, little by little the dance floor became almost empty until it was just them. The couple has been married for 63 years. I cried. It was one of the most beautiful sights I've seen at a wedding. How sweet and beautiful as they held onto each other and moved together across the dance floor. I started thinking about their journey and the things they might've faced throughout those 63 years. How many times they've failed each other, disapointed each other. How many financial challenges they might've been through. Have they had to face losing a child? I don't know their story, but I am sure they have one to tell. I started to think about the challenges we face. In my opinion, most of our challenges are little compared to being committed to a marriage for 63 years. But yet, how easily we give up. A little challenge comes our way and we so easily just throw in the towel. We've lost the ability to fight through things. Or better yet, we just don't care as much as we think we do. I find that most people I talk to say that they CAN'T do something but in reality they can. They just don't feel like it. They don't feel like sticking with something through those times it's not as easy. Where is your fight? When you want something bad enough.. what stops you from getting to it? Why do you quit on yourself yet you'd never quit on someone you love?  We look at people, that in our opinion are successful, for me like this couple that danced alone that night on the dance floor. And we don't always see the challenges they might have faced we only see the success they have. The truth is, we all face challenges that could give us a perfectly good reason to quit. But quiting should not be an option. Johnathan asked us the other day what divorce meant. We told him it's when one or both grown ups quit in their marriage. He said, "Oh! Well that won't happen to us because Latiak's never quit!" I want to encourage you.. don't quit! Don't quit at the things you have set your mind on. Once you decide that quiting is not an option for you.. you'll keep going until you reach your finish line.