Soarin’ Made Me Cry

Disneyland is filled with rides and adventures. Some are sweet, some get your heart rate up and others (apparently) will make you cry!

Or they will make me cry at least.

One ride that I did not take the last time I was here was Soarin’. I had never even heard of it until this time around, and I didn’t really know what to expect to be honest.

You wait in line and then you have a “pilot” giving you the flight instructions for your ride. As soon as we got in, you get strapped to a row of seats that are hanging from the ceiling, and then you’re off! Your feet leave the floor and you are facing a giant screen.

All of the sudden you’re flying up in the skies with the wind in your hair, and then you’re traveling all over the world in a matter of seconds without ever really going anywhere.

Now I’m a very visual person, and I get moved so easily. One of the things that I’ve found after I started traveling a lot, was just how emotional I get out of complete awe of what the world has to offer. The different sights, smells and sounds. By going on this ride my mind ended up getting somewhat of an overload I guess. I was “flying” over an African desert filled with elephants and I just started crying. Even I was a bit surprised.

It was something about the smells that they add to the ride, and the wind effects that made it feel so real, even though I knew it wasn’t. It just got to me. I felt so incredibly lucky to be in the position that I’m in where I get to travel as much as I do. Something about all the wonders that this world has to offer, and maybe more than anything else, it got to me exactly how reckless we are when it comes to taking care of it.

So many takes it for granted way too often, and it’s easy to do when we live inside of our own bubbles for too long. I think that’s why I love to travel as much as I do. It puts everything into perspective, and it reminds me of all the beauty we’re surrounded by, and how important it is to take care of it all.

So this is why Soarin’ made my cry, and why I think it’s the best and most spectacular ride that Disneyland has to offer!

If you ever get the chance to go on it, I would highly recommend that you give it a try!

Love is Still the Answer

If it’s one thing that will never cease to amaze me, it’s how much hurt people can experience and still be able to dare to love afterward.

We all go through so much with our hearts in our hands, outstretched and vulnerable. Sometimes we experience that heart to meet another one, and they wrap themselves in each other. It can last for a few minutes, weeks, months, or maybe even years.

Other times, that vulnerable heart takes a leap of faith out of your hands, headed straight for the ground with no one to break the fall, just you to pick up the pieces.

Our hearts they bleed, and they scar. They wrap themselves in layers of protection, but somehow they always find a way to strip the layers, sooner or later. Sometimes they need a little help to get those layers off, other times, it’s just self-love that removes those layers, one by one.

Isn’t it amazing how most of us choose to go back to love over and over again, no matter how badly it hurt the last time around? One can sometimes wonder if that makes us the most stupid species of all, or the most wonderful. I choose to see us as wonderful.

For if we don’t choose love to guide us, what does that make us? If the experiences and pain of our past would make us unable to love another, how wasted wouldn’t our lives be?

But the way that we trust and love, it changes. The way we love when we are young and naive is not the same way as we love when we are older and more experienced. I’m not sure that this is a change for the better. I guess it depends on the situation.

I sometimes long for the naive kind of love that I could experience as an early teen before I knew what real heartbreak felt like. Before I learned to fear a possible outcome before I even allow myself to fall. But there’s also a beauty in all the pain one has gone through. The way I’ve learned to pick myself up again, to set boundaries, to love myself enough to say no and to see the love of friends and family to be the purest love of all.

I don’t think I would like to love naively in the world of modern dating. I’m pretty sure that would set me up for disaster. But I do hope that no matter how far away from love I feel like I’m drifting, I will always find my way back to it. That I will always allow myself to trust love again, no matter how much it scares me. And that I won’t be blinded by the layers of past events, so much so that I won’t be able to see new and real love if it crosses my path.

We, humans, are extraordinary in the way that we love when it’s done without games or hidden agendas. When it’s real, pure, and raw. When it’s done from a place of not being able to choose anything other. When we love enough to want the other person happy, no matter if that takes them away from us. When it’s kind and giving. When it’s just love❤️

Love is Still the Answer❤️

This post was inspired by one of my favorite songs from Jason Mraz’s latest album. It’s a song that has brought tears, smiles and moments of me singing out loud and dancing around, hugging myself in my living room❤️

Why I Cry in Front of My Child

As parents, we often feel the need to come across as the strong protector. The one that can chase away the things that hurt. We put on the band-aids, we comfort, we give advice, and we tell our kids that it’s perfectly normal to be sad, and to cry.

But for some reason, no matter how much we talk about how natural and okay it is, we often feel like we’re in some way failing as a parent if we break down in front of our kids. Not saying that this applies to everyone, but it sure did to me, and to a lot of other parents that I’ve talked to over the years.

I grew up with a mom that I never saw crying. To this day, I still haven’t seen her cry a single time. She probably has her own reasons for that (I’ve never asked), and luckily for me, it didn’t make me afraid of showing those kinds of emotions. But the other thing my mom never did in front of me, was to argue with her husband. I never saw them have a serious discussion even, at least not that I can recall. And as I came into adulthood myself, I was terrified of confrontations when it came to close relationships. Do I blame this entirely on my mom? Absolutely not! Do I think that her actions could play a role in me getting so uncomfortable around people who argue, and confrontations? Yes, I do.

I understand that we choose to not show all the hardships and troubles we experience as adults to our kids. Poor things, they might end up scared silly and wonder what the hell we are all doing. I sure do sometimes!

But I don’t think we are doing them any favors by not showing the real emotions that we all go through. In a little over a year, my son will be a teenager, and I remember very well how hard that time of life can be. I hope that he’s learned that there’s no shame in feeling the struggle of life at times and that expressing his feelings is perfectly fine.

My son has seen me cry out of heartache, troubled friendships, work-related issues, and movies. Whenever he asks me why I’m crying, I try to be as open and honest about how I feel as I can. The answer I give him will most likely not cover all the details of the events that lead up to me shedding some tears, but I try to give him a very honest explanation as to the emotions I’m feeling. It’s damn hard at times, but I’m very grateful for having done so, as I can now see that he’s more and more comfortable when it comes to opening up if he’s having a hard time.

I probably won’t be the person he will go to with all his problems and struggles, but I can only hope that he will feel comfortable enough to share some of them with me.

I am a human. A person who makes mistakes, who gets moved, who regrets, thinks, wonders, and feel insecure. None of us are perfect, and isn’t it then only right that we show our kids exactly that? That we talk about the things that we find hard and the emotions that come with them?

I sure think so, and that is why I cry in front of my child❤️

The Poetry That Moves Me

From time to time I come across writers and poets that has a way of putting words together that moves me beyond anything I could have ever imagined. It’s such an intense and wonderful feeling at the same time, and whenever it happens I really do appreciate it although it might be painful.

But there’s something so magical about looking at a piece of paper and in printed words seeing a window into ones own feelings, or a reflection of yourself.

Today I want to highlight a poet that does that for me, time and time again.

Rupi Kaur!

I was introduced to Milk and Honey by a colleague, and have since ended up buying the book multiple times, because I keep giving it away. It’s just too good not to be shared. I also read The Sun and Her Flowers, and loved that one too, even though it didn’t move as many times over as the Milk and Honey did.

The first time I read Milk and Honey, I had to take breaks because I would come across poems that just made me bawl my eyes out. Sometimes it was because I could relate to the pain, other times a wish to feel some of the same joy, and other times it was just like reading my own story, or about heartbreak moments that I recognised all too well.

This one right here is one that still hits me every time:

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I have so much respect for poets and writers that can awaken as much emotion in a reader that I experience when reading this. And when it comes to personal dreams and goals, I would say that this is one of mine for sure; to write stories and poetry that moves people.

To be moved by words is such a powerful experience, and different people all experience it in different ways❤️

It’s true magic!

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If you want to know more about Milk and Honey and/or The Sun and Her Flowers, just click on the book covers below to go their BookDepository page:

                                                 

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