Life has been feeling insane. Not a bad kind of insane. Just a fast and furious kind. The kind where you have to pause and catch your breath. The kind where you feel yourself clawing for time to please slow down, but it doesn’t listen to you, so you have to stop and slow your own frantic heart down and just take some breaths.

Brent and I and the kids are about to go through a big life transition. (Stay tuned! Exciting things ahead. But, I’m not ready to tell you quite yet.)

In the meantime, we’re trying desperately to stay connected. So, here’s what we do. Every evening, when Brent gets home from his whirlwind of a day at work, I stand on this here stool and we hug. For at least 20 whole seconds. We just hold each other and breathe and sometimes one of us sings a little song to the other.

Now, this sounds cheesy, I know. But, it’s how we’re managing to stay close.

I have this philosophy in life. It goes like this: “If you’re gonna be married, you might as well be best friends.” Now, some people are married to jerks and that’s sad. But, for us, we aren’t married to jerks. It’s just that sometimes we act like jerks and we have to turn back around again. Towards God and to each other. Sometimes we have to call each other out, “Hey! You’re being a jerk. When you say it like this, it makes me feel like this.” And since we love each other, we do our best to consider the other person’s feelings and we work it out. And when we get stuck, we pray it out. And honestly, sometimes we yell it out. But, that scares the kids, so we try really hard not to do that.

The stool helps.

It helps because I’m a shorty pants and I can reach Brent better and then I can feel his chest beating against mine. And before long, this stool becomes a symbol. It’s like the stool is shouting, “Hey, use me! I’ll be a sacred little place for you to reach up and reach out and grab hold of and connect with your best friend.”

Again. Cheesy.

But, life is insane and we’ve got to hang on to each other on the crazy ride or one of us is gonna go spinning out into the universe somewhere and get plumb lost.

Deep breaths, my friends.  Remember, you and him are on the same team. You don’t have to live in your own orbit and keep crashing into each other.

Dance in the kitchen. Chase each other around the yard. Send each other an email or a text not asking for anything, but just sayin’, “Hi! I like you. I’m glad you’re here with me.”

Jesus is cheering for us.