Real Life

I took this picture yesterday afternoon. When I looked at the image in the camera I fell in love with it. It doesn't exactly scream "Christmas card photo." The children are mismatched, rumpled, filthy...not even looking at the camera in some cases. Bandit is escaping. The decoy K is proudly holding up has been mangled by an overexcited retriever. It is not the composition of the photo I loved--it is that it seems to capture the essence of real life on a Sunday afternoon.

We were filthy in the middle of a field with nothing to entertain us but each other..and it was good.

I started thinking about how my favorite pictures lately are the ones of everyday moments. Hair is messy, tummies hanging out of shirts...

Hair and clothing covered in grass...

But those smiles are authentic. This is real life. Real life isn't always posed on the beach in matching outfits. Real life is messy and sometimes mismatched. Real life has scrapes and bruises to go with those hearts bursting with love. Real life vacillates between laughter and tears--occasionally both at the same time.

I am so thankful for the maturity to recognize that real life very seldom looks like you thought it would. It is generally not worthy of a magazine spread. No, it is far richer than that!

I couldn't help but be reminded of this quote from The Velveteen Rabbit.

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
~From the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

P.S. I am pretty sure real life also sometimes involves things like feeding your puppy water from a little red potty because it just happens to be handy in the back of the car.