a tethered ball, a fleeting fall + the adorableness of turning two.

At the end of September, I flew to Knoxville for the weekend to celebrate Bird's 2nd birthday where Kara transformed their driveway into a full-on carnival, complete with a carousel + popcorn machine {that's a whole other blog post in the making!}. It was such a lovely celebration full of many moments to love + dote on little Reeseybird that extended throughout the entire weekend!

Kara knows all the best places to celebrate every season + my favorite memory of the weekend was taking Reese to a pumpkin patch just South of Knoxville to indulge in all things Fall. Two-year-old toddlers + their amazing imaginations are my absolute favorite and Reese's exaggerated reaction to just about everything makes even feeding smelly goats just the cutest thing you've ever seen. 

Be still, my heart. 

Good gracious, this was one fleeting Fall. I turned another year wiser on the eve of the start to another Autumn quarter.  Pumpkin patches sprouted up along roadsides and I overused the phrase, "Happy Fall, y'all!" getting lost in corn mazes. I drank my weight in pumpkin spice lattes every morning on my way to work + stopped to admire the red, orange + yellow leaves that peppered the hilltops in every neighborhood. I exclusively wore a variation of the oversized sweater + leggings + boots combination and wandered aimlessly through the streets of Seattle taking in the perfect crisp air that was coupled with the superfluous sunshine that is September in the PNW's best kept secret. I became addicted to consumed a bowl of butternut squash soup {Local 360's with that delectable dollop of pumpkin-flavored greek yogurt is my favorite!} at least three times a week + curled up with a wooly scarf to watch college football every Saturday. It was perfection.

Aside from the fact that next week is finals week, the subtle cues that  usually signal an encroaching winter have been sorely delayed this December being trapped on a tropical island, an isle that I have endearingly renamed Hellwaii. But if there is one place that always feels homey + cozy and has been up to its stockings in holiday spirit since November 4th {when she put up the Christmas tree}, it is the Williams residence. I am counting down the days (less than two weeks) until I return to Knoxville to settle in for the holidays and experience Christmas through the eyes of a very imaginative 2-year-old + ring in the new year with Grams, Creed + Kara waiting for baby boy W. {Dub, as I like to call him} to arrive...
...but little mister, you better stay put in that perfect little womb of yours for these next couple of weeks! We are anxiously awaiting your arrival and absolutely cannot wait to meet you, either... but grow bigger + get stronger to the cadence of your mama's heartbeat for just a little while longer. The world awaits you. 

throw it all into the ocean + let it be, pollyanna style.

I gotta go. It's time to spread my wings and fly, higher than the bluest skies. 

November 22nd: You are probably not cognizant of the fact that today marks the two year anniversary of that cold + snowy winter day when I unknowingly said good-bye to my best friend. I have replayed that moment over and over so many times in my mind, sometimes jolted awake by the nightmare realization that it really was the last time I would see your face, sometimes getting lost in intricate daydreams of alternate endings...

...I was gonna marry you.  

It was one of the first snowfalls of the winter. Our fingers had interlocked in the middle of the night + I woke up paralyzed to the sound of your heartbeat, wanting this moment to last forever. Morning came, not many words were exchanged as you got ready for work + I quietly gathered the last of my things around the apartment. A montage of the happier times raced through my mind, feeling conflicted as to why I would ever need to leave the comfort of this place. Tears rushed down my face as you balanced my boxes with your briefcase and I walked slowly behind you down that long hallway, noticing every contour of your body. Were you always this handsome?

The wooden floors creaked beneath us as we descended down the three flights of stairs of our old character apartment in silence. The wisps of wind stung my cheeks as we stepped out in to the middle of the street. A blanket of snow had covered the cars that lined Corydon overnight and as you drew me in, snowflakes landed on your lashes. I felt the world's spin slow down wrapped in your arms and as time stood still for just an instant, I saw the degree of assurance in your eyes as you kissed me. "Go find yourself. It will be okay. I love you." 

Just so you know, I never thought you'd let me go. 

& I never imagined just how okay I would really be. I never thought finding peace in my heart would emulate an overwhelming amount of gratitude from the very same place that used to be so stricken with pain. I am so-very-grateful for your ability to let me go; to recognize an irreconcilable difference that I could not see lost in the moment.

Throw it all in to the ocean + let it be. 

That happiness I set out in search of found its way to me, in the form of a fully restored heart, one that has found its beat again. You taught me a tremendous amount about myself + helped me to realize just what it is that I want in this world. I am a better person because of you. Thank you for coming in to my life at a time that I needed you the most + letting me love you in a way no one else could. & thank you for the many amazing memories we made that I will forever hold in a happy place in the deepest boroughs of my heart. 

I was your girl but in the end, it wasn't what you wanted.

A wise woman once said that it takes half the amount of time you dated someone to get over them + as I put the dream of us behind me for one final time, I stop + smile. She was absolutely right. Two years + an incredible amount of growth later, it feels so marvelous to carry on confidently in the direction of new dreams, pollyanna style.    

you, sir, were a wonderful four years.

color me rad.

I don't consider myself an avid runner but I do consider routine running some wicked kind of therapy for me + I have found a direct correlation to the amount of happiness in my life with the amount of running I am doing. I have tried to participate in at least one race a year {Rock & Roll 2009} since I ran that dreaded full marathon {once in a lifetime was more than enough...} through Disney World back in 2008. After running the bridge-to-brews 10K in Portland in April in preparation for the Avenue of the Giants half marathon that I finished in May, I was delighted to participate in Seattle's Color Run the very next weekend... just for fun! 

The Color Run is a super rad {and easy!} 5K that raises money for the Ronald McDonald House, a place where many families can stay to be near their hospitalized children...my very own mama included when little Christopher was in the NICU. Dubbed the happiest 5K on the planet, I don't think I stopped smiling once... especially during the explosion of color, the amazing party at the finish line! 

It was the perfect spring day at Seattle Center and although the race was awesome {awesome: {as in} I was still sore from my half seven days prior, took my sweet time accumulating maximum color by walking through the color stations + I didn't pay attention to my race time in the least bit}...

...my favorite part was joining my roommate for mimosas + biscuits at my favorite breakfast restaurant, Serious Biscuit, afterward..

+ heading to the my absolute favorite beach in Seatown for the rest of the day to soak up the first sunshine of the summer at Golden Gardens with some of my Seattle favorites.

Color me awesome.

I already have the date saved for Lululemon's SeaWheeze Half Marathon for next year! Megalina, will you please join me? =)    

these are a few of my favorite moments.

Twenty-twelve, the NICU-infused blur that it has been, has not afforded a lot of time to sleep, eat healthy, exercise, keep in touch with anyone other than google scholar + most importantly, blog! In fact, I have blogged less in the last nine months as I  usually do in one month {same goes for exercising, sleep, k.i.t.-ing...} and it has broken my heart a little to watch each month fly by, undocumented + uncelebrated... ...but my heart smiled this morning when I woke up  remembering today was  the first day of December + I actually had today off to start the best month of the year off right {Read: on a beach, soaking up sunshine + reading a Nicholas Sparks' book from cover to cover}!! I could use some Christmas spirit in my life and the lover of all-things-holiday in me refuses to let this last month go unnoticed, unspirited + uncelebrated... no matter if its still 80 degrees outside, I am isolated on an island for clinicals, it's practically finals week, my  life is packed in a basement back in Seattle + I'm starting a new travel assignment in two weeks in Tennessee {good gracious, when is this year going to end?!} I have several countdowns in my calendar {nine days left in Hawaii, 12 days left of the quarter, 16 days until I'm at Kara's, 25 days until Christmas, 112 days until I am done with school} + I am going to spend this final month remembering a few of my favorite memories of twentytwelve... starting with a day trip to Rialto Beach. 

Celeste + I have gone on a lot of Sunday dates in the last six months in Seattle {I wrote about our first one here.} One Sunday at the end of summer, we decided to drive to the end of the Earth. We loaded up my car with the dogs, not enough beer + boarded the ferry over to the Olympic Peninsula. I misread the directions and thought it was only about an hour once we crossed the Sound but one accidental detour through Forks {where Twilight was set} + four hours later, we finally arrived at the most magical beach to watch the most breathtaking sunset that seriously lasted for hours... once the insanely thick layer of fog cleared.  

We were basically walking along the horizon + I'm fairly certain that if you looked close enough as the sun was sinking, you could see it simultaneously rising in Australia.

The driftwood was so massive + made the perfect place for campers to hang a hammock to watch sunset by their campsite. I was so envious.   Have you ever seen a sun so huge... or orange? #nofilter We didn't see any vampires or werewolves but the cotton candy clouds that filled the sky at twilight were amazing. These pictures do them absolutely no justice. I'm sorry, sky.

Happy December, y'all. 

aloha from o'ahu

Aloha, my ohana {that's Hawaiian for family!} I survived my first week here in Honolulu and while I am finding my clinicals very challenging {in both positive + negative ways!}, I am also finding time to stop, put a flower in my hair + breathe in the views on my few days off! I am so looking forward to Tad coming to visit for Friendsgiving on Wednesday + be a total tourist all around this island for an entire week... because being a isle resident isn't as glamorous as it sounds + I have a sneaking suspicion that being a vacationer is where it is at in O'ahu. Hopefully, I will find time to publish all the drafts I've been working on since March {yes y'all, I still have blog posts from the spring I would like to publish before the new year arrives!} while I am here! Off to the hospital for a 16 hour shift... mahalo! 

a hole in my heart, of the space needle variety.

SisterinSeattle from Jocelyn Kirk on Vimeo.

I made this video awhile back in an effort to entice my sister to come back to Seattle to visit but what I didn't anticipate is that in a few short months I would find myself playing this video on repeat in an effort to fend off the sadness that is battling to overtake my ability to find the beauty here in Hawaii. I only left Seattle four days ago but I feel as though there is a gaping hole in my heart, most likely in the shape of the Space Needle... as I drove by her + all her beauty every day on my way to work, school or just about anywhere each everydayadventure led me. She was a part of my morning ritual + while the ocean, palm trees + superfluous amount of sunshine in my new *temporary* residence are helping to appease the pain of one bleeding heart, I miss her. & my mountain. & my market. & my lattes. & my people... oh, how I miss my people. I am so lucky to have somewhere that makes it so hard to say "see you soon!" to + as I process + readjust + process again what my new everyday will consist of, I am thankful for all the memories that I get to carry with me {in my heart} on each new adventure life takes me on. 

dead hearts.

dead hearts: The Wedding of Victoria and Jason Evigan from Lightfield Lewis on Vimeo.

It’s an intensely palpable love like this that strips me bare of my broken-hearted cynicism, reveals the very real + hopeful, hopeless romantic that occupies my core + restores my withering faith in fate. Perhaps, true love really does exist + maybe one day the stars will align + I will be lucky enough to find a love that makes storybooks jealous, too. 

Is it possible to miss someone you have never met? I have been thinking about him a lot recently. How his smile will light up his face. What his passions will be. What his laugh will sound like. What stories have shaped him into the man he is... + what he imagines the future to look like. 

Will he like to read? Will he share the same wanderlust that I do? I get lost in daydreams thinking about how safe I will feel in his arms. How he’ll know just the way I like my coffee {3 splendas, half hazelnut cream} + know exactly what to say just before I begin to cry. How he’ll find humor in my tornado-like tendencies + support my wildest dreams... especially the one about bathing with elephants in Bali.

He’ll understand my need to be alone some days + appreciate my need to feel wanted, every day. He'll believe me when I tell him I don't like store-bought gifts, only thoughtful ones of the conversation-hearts-glued-to-red-construction-paper variety. 

He’ll love me + my un-domestication unconditionally, even if I never successfully learn to use the oven for anything other than sweater storage or adequately adopt the word “frugal” in to my vocabulary. He’ll counteract my inability to sit still + help me stay content in the present. He’ll forgive me when I forget to communicate rationally + love me deeper on my darkest days. He’ll give the best forehead kisses ever known + never judge me for my love of raw cookie dough. 

He’ll share the same love for small things {especially changing seasons + babies} that I have + find just as much magic in creating traditions that I do. He will dedicate his life to making me happy, knowing I am living each day doing just the same… loving him whole-heartedly, wondering how I got to be so lucky to be his wife. 

I know when we finally do meet I'll understand why we had not met any sooner for I am still finding my feet... so until the day that the meet-cute arrives + our eyes will lock across a crowded room, our hearts immediately intertwined, I will carry on living each day to the fullest while I wait... patiently + passionately. hopelessly + wrecklessly. 

"How will I know?" he'll ask.

Oh, that's easy...I’ll be the girl smiling coyly in the corner, with lights inside my eyes.

the unwritten rule.

... it's moments like these when I wish I could pick up the phone and say, "Hey, Ma! Can you please scan that picture of me when I was like eight + spent two days with all seventeen of my dolls in the hammock in our backyard?" ... because I know that picture existed once upon a time + it would be a great addition to this post... but you will just have to imagine me, freckled, tow-headed + sunburned, swinging between two trees with what looked like the fruits of my robbing-of-FAO-Schwartz labor...

Technically, I have been a NICU nurse for 4+ years but when I look back at my life, it's easy to see that I have been preparing for this profession long before I knew what a profession was. One of my earliest memories is sitting on the bed at my Baba's house in between two dolls with crocheted hats at the age of about two. I can't remember what Baba looked like but I vividly remember that the bedspread was electric blue + itchy. The dollies were dressed in pink and white. And I sat there for hours seeing how far I could tip their heads back before their eyelids flung shut.

I can't really remember a moment in my childhood when I didn't have a doll in tow... except that time in second grade when my mum ran an Alzheimer's home + one of her "clients" stole my doll in a freak lapse-of-memory accident where she thought it was her own + wouldn't give me "her daughter" back.... I can't recall if that crazy, old lady returned my baby doll but I continued to play with my other sixteen dolls long past when it was socially acceptable to continue to do so. 

Come to think of it, two Christmases ago, I found a box of old toys that somehow made it to a shelf in my sister's garage in Tennessee. Sifting quickly through + casually disregarding the expensive extensive collection of Gund stuffed animals, my heart nearly stopped when I discovered my set of twins that cried when you separated them at the bottom. If it wasn't for the {real} newborn baby inside, I probably would have stayed in the garage rocking + feeding my twin babies well through the new year...      {crickets.}

Growing up, I tried to find a way to incorporate babies in to all my free time. I would sit out at gymnastics practice to play with my coach's son in middle school. I babysat three nights a week in high school. I was a cuddler every Monday night my freshman year of college + I nannied the latter three years. Some have even called me "the baby whisperer."  

An old boyfriend used to tell me I had a "smile just for babies," one where my eyes lit up + it was externally written on my face that my heart was melting from the squishy goodness. Sitting across from him at dinner, he would ask, "Is there a baby behind me?"   "How did you know?!"   "You're doing again. Your I-see-a-cute-baby smile."

I nearly dropped out of nursing school every semester for 4 years declaring that if I had to step my Rainbow-clad foot in that chemistry lab or smell C. Difficile one more time, I would die... until I did my senior practicum in the neonatal intensive care unit and although it was well, intense, I had never felt more at home in my entire life. I was surrounded by newborn babies and with them came teeny, tiny accessories: microscopic clothing, preemie-sized blood pressure cuffs, the smallest little diapers you had ever seen. And it was about the time I learned the importance of finding a passion that I landed my dream job in a NICU on the other side of the country at Childrens Hospital LA. It was like my backyard transformed in to Hollywood, all the dolls in my hammock came to life + my happy place was now my "profession"...  

Turns in life courses, travel nursing and clinical settings have brought me to several NICUs in various regions of the country + outside the country, too... And within each NICU, I have learned that there are many ways to do the exact same thing. I've learned forty-seven ways to take a temperature, change a diaper and swaddle a baby. I've seen a gobjillion different isolettes, syringe pumps and charting systems. And although the end result is always the same regime to feed-grow-discharge-convalescing-preemie-home-with-loving-parents, it is never done exactly the same way...

Except one thing. There is one thing that cannot be taught or altered. You won't find it written in a protocol or in a a policy + procedure manual. It's an unwritten rule, only written in the hearts of every neonatal nurse. If a baby should pass away, it must do so in loving arms. Whether that be the arms of a parent, a nurse, a resident or a practitioner... No baby should die in an isolette or on a warmer no matter how many tubes he or she is hooked up to, not whether they are 1 pound or 10 pounds. Every baby is held as they take their last breath.  

I was recently reminded of this unwritten rule. In the final hour of my 5-day stretch, a baby was born with faulty DNA that was incompatible with life.  I stepped in to the the patient room right at shift change where the nurse providing "comfort care" handed off a beautifully bundled baby, whose every breath was getting gradually harder than the one taken before, to the oncoming nurse whose sole purpose for the next twelve hours would be to hold + love that fragile being in its final moments of life.

Leaving the hospital that evening, my eyes welled up with tears... but not with tears of sadness... tears of pride. I'm so incredibly proud of my profession. While I rarely write about my job as its impossible to put in to words just what I do for a living, I can assure you I have the best job in the world + I am insanely proud to be a neonatal nurse. I am beyond prideful of the work that we do in our tiny sterile bubble with the most fragile of patient populations. Being a NICU nurse is a large part of who I am... and most days, the only thing I am certain I am. With every challenge comes the greatest reward and with every heartbreak comes over-the-moon happiness. I'm not sure why I got to be so lucky to be given the passion of "loving on little miracles" but, ohmyword, am I happy it found me.  

rest peacefully, tiny angel + dance among the lucky stars for me. 

thankful.

Today is the Canadian Thanksgiving and as all of my family gathered together over the weekend in cozy cabins to eat, drink + play games to no avail (it's just what we Davis' do), I Starbucks-hopped from Belltown to Madison Park to Uvillage ugly-crying when our Skype date ended doing schoolwork between shifts + pondering all the things I have to be thankful for...

I am thankful for that weekend in June when I returned home for a lovely wedding. I spent every minute lost in conversation over a bottomless pot of coffee with grams, my mum, my cousins + aunties, and friendsthatarelikefamily. We stayed up long past when the little pips went to sleep, talking about the uncertainty of my future while simultaneously discovering a new appreciation for the present, in a the-good-ole-days-are-happening-now kind of way. I am thankful for getting to celebrate the second birthday of the light of my light in Tennessee the weekend before last... but even more thankful for getting to meet baby boy W. via ultrasound. He smiled + I cried tears of happiness... for there is truly nothing more incredible than hearing the heartbeat of a growing, healthy baby... and watching as my older sister proudly carries the most perfect little baby {#2} bump without reservation, for she has already bloomed {with ease} in to one amazing mama. 

I am thankful for the encouragement + support of my professors, believing in me when I doubted my abilities to finish strong in this last six months. I'm two-thirds of the way there and my confidence has been restored; the hard work will pay off. I re-enrolled this quarter + finally feel capable, again. It's an exhilarating feeling knowing your dreams are so close to coming to fruition... like if my life was a fairytale, this final stretch is akin to Cinderella's glass slipper fitting. If When the shoe fits...

I am thankful for the gorgeous autumnal weather that has taken over this town, turning the evergreen leaves various shades of red + yellow. The foliage is seriously spectacular this time of year... not to mention this October's absence of rain... replaced by the perfect temperature for wearing wooly sweaters, boots + tights and a sun that shines brightly on. Its the kind of weather that makes you feel warm + fuzzy inside, turning every day in to a good day just because it's a happy balance of sunny + cool. You know the kind.

I am thankful for being able to find the beauty in a less-than-perfect ending to a one-and-only-time trial of "casual dating"... which came to me in the form of a beautiful friendship with someone I certainly would have never met if I wouldn't had agreed to go for drinks with her cousin's roommate... and now, six months later, I get to consider her a dear friend for life. And besides, although he may have been twenty-seven kinds of wrong for me, it was liberating to know that nearly two years after this day, I am able to open myself up to the idea of dating again... which has to be some kind of good measure of a healing heart. I may be taking baby steps in my glass slippers but I think my heart may have finally found its beat again.  

But mostly, I am thankful for having a little corner of the world that is so hard to say good-bye to... almost as hard as missing a Thanksgiving feast with my family... but good gracious, am I grateful to have been given the opportunity to get to know them, call them mine + will continue to love them like family from afar.