Let me tell you about a soulmate. Your soulmate is not someone who buys you flowers, brings you chocolate, or lays under the stars with you. Your soulmate is someone who makes you question everything you've ever known, someone who changes your plans, and makes you promises. Not just any promises though. Or promises on temporary feelings. Someone who promises you the world and takes every action to prove his promises are true. Someone who makes you laugh out loud and even silently. Someone who wrecks your plans and opens your eyes. Someone who can be silent when words aren't needed and speak when they are. Not someone who tells you what you wanna hear or someone who knows exactly what to say. Your soulmate is someone that can exchange 1,000 words between your eyes without even opening his mouth. Your soulmate is someone who not only knows what to say to make it better but someone who only speaks the truth. Your soulmate is not someone who spoils you or gives you every single thing you want. Your soulmate is someone who teaches you how to work hard and be humble so you can do those things for yourself, with your own money, that you earned. Your soulmate isn't someone who has all the answers. Your soulmate tries to understand the questions with you and helps you discover the answer. Your soulmate makes you better not content. Your soulmate knows what you're feeling just by looking at you. Your soulmate listens without the intent of answering. Just sincere listening. Your soulmate makes your problems theirs. Cries when you cry. Laughs when you laugh. In fact, your laugh alone should make your soulmate fall in love with you even more. Your soulmate isn't based on looks, style, or class. Your soulmate isn't perfect. Your soulmate has flaws. He makes mistakes. But your soulmate is worthy of forgiveness. Your soulmate will never intentionally hurt you or put you second. But he's also human. Things happen. Your soulmate is someone who makes you understand these things. He teaches you how to compromise. He teaches you so much about compassion you'll wonder if you were ever even in love before like you thought you were. Your soulmate isn't someone who gracefully comes into your life at the perfect time. Your soulmate comes wrecking in. Rearranging your world and changing your plans. Your soulmate turns you into a better you just by choosing to stand beside you. You see, more than anything, your soulmate isn't someone who can give you a temporary high. Your soulmate is your lifelong partner. He's your best friend first and your lover second. He's the never ending band around your left finger. He's your favorite song, place, and memory. He's the one who consumes your soul. He's your strength, your security, and your happiness. He's the other half of your heart and the only one with enough power to bring you closer to God. If you get flowers, chocolate, a starlight date, or even better a good looking man too, then you're lucky. But those are just bonuses. None of those things matter in 10, 20, 30 years from now. What matters is that as you age the love of your soulmate doesn't. Your soulmate? I don't know where he is. But mine? His name is Ryan. And he was just described as everything I said your soulmate was. Why? Because I know this is a once in a lifetime love and I know everyone deserves to have someone exactly like him. I just hope you're all lucky enough to have a man as beautiful on the outside as on the inside like me. He's more than I could dream of. Find THAT and stop worrying about a Friday night date. 

"Who I am with you is who I really want to be, you're so good for me"

Blogging has been my escape for many different reasons and from many different things. I find it harder to come up with blog posts now that my life has changed so drastically. I'm not the same heartbroken, bitter, confused girl. I'm actually happy. I find it easier to complain, rant and rave, and express my sorrows than I do boasting my happiness and praising my accomplishments. But why though? I have no clue. It's kind of like my outlook on everything though. When things are going good I find ways to make them bad. Who would do such a thing? I absolutely hate to be that way and I hate that characteristic found in my personality. It comes from the constant need to be reassured. I need to be told the same thing over and over even when I don't have a reasonable doubt to feel the way I do. Example: I need to be told what Ryan's feelings are towards me. All of the time. And for no apparent reason. I just can't help it. Do I like it? No. Hell no. But I NEED it. It comes from the same need that I have to seek constant approval from everyone. Even my enemies. I always wanna be better than everyone. Always wanna have the upper hand, the nicer accessories, the better life. I'm selfish and I'm even a little ungrateful at times. I guess having a baby at age 18 and disappointing my parents since the day I became legally old enough to make adult decisions could be the reason why. I vividly remember my dad constantly praising me to all of his friends/coworkers/strangers. I was his daughter and I was an "angel." I wrecked my dads world that day. And I can confidentially say so. Since February of 2009, when I found out that I was bearing a child I've done nothing but beg for approval from my dad. I didn't ride a dirtbike so the easiest way to bond with him was out of the question. I've tried numerous times to show him I was gonna make my life better, stay on the right track, and not be the lost duckling anymore. All I wanted was to get my "ducks in a row." Well guess what... I'm still floating in all of the wrong directions and I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never get it right. It's hard to seek approval and constantly do right when you're 23 and live at home. Shoot, I don't like ducks anyways. And besides, they're mean. 

But then I met Ryan. I got a Facebook message from a god sent angel. Yes, Ryan was sent to me. Straight from God. It took desperation, complete emptiness, and the unknown certainty of my faith to find him. But I've got him. And I've got him for good. He makes me want to be better. I no longer want to live at home. I actually want to get a job and move out so that the two of us can have our own place. I want to be independent. I want to seek my degree, hold a job, be a girlfriend, but most of all the best mom I possibly can be. Maybe my dad is so hard on me because he wants what's best for me. Maybe my mom and I argue every single day because she doesn't want me at home because it doesn't teach me a valid lesson on life. I'm 23. For gods sake I am a quarter of the way through my life and I live under my parents roof and on their checkbook. It's hard to make your parents proud when you don't support yourself or your child. It's hard to make your parents proud when you're 23 and just now earned your associates degree. But you know what? Who cares. I got the degree, I'm working on the job, and my plan is to be out and on my own by August. If I can maintain two relationships, a job, and an education, surely that should make them proud. God willing, I pray so anyways. I know they say you should do things for yourself but when so much of who you are comes from your parents, when you owe your parents so much of your life, making them happy and proud is not only a priority but a necessity. In my eyes anyways. What happens though when the person you chose to stand beside you while you grow and make all of these responsible decisions might not be the person your parents want for you? Is any dad ever going to "like" another man who enters their daughters life though? I know that life comes with no instructions and I also know that two people can see the same thing/people and have two different opinions on it/them. So here is my public opinion on that situation: I love Ryan. I love the man he is. I love the man he was. I love the man he is when he is mad. And I love the man he is when he is happy, the most. Love also doesn't come with instructions. You literally pick another human and decide that you want to spend the rest of your life with that person. I'm not saying that my parents don't like Ryan. I'm not sure if they ever will or if they already do but I am sure of this: I choose Ryan today, tomorrow, and every single day after that. I choose Ryan to be my "person." I choose him to be Kaydens male figure and step-dad to be. It does not matter who approves of this, who has something to say of this, or who tries to stop this. I have literally spent the last 5 years of my life begging for approval and I just don't want to anymore. When you love your decisions you don't need other people to approve of them. Absolute fact. I'll never stop choosing Ryan. I'll never stop trying. I'll never stop being the girl he fell in love with because I never wanna experience a single day not feeling the way that I do now. Because of him. I feel like a princess. I never wanna feel any other way than I do as his girlfriend. Who he is to me, to Kayden, and everyone he knows is more than I could ever ask for. Whether people see him the same way or not is irrelevant. I've always been the type to put my family first. The way it should be in my eyes. But now that I have found my soulmate it's different. I will always put Kayden first. I will always make decisions that best benefit him but for the first time in my life I understand the true importance of putting God first, my relationship second, my child third, and myself last. (Okay secretly two and three are tied. Shhhh!) Before you freak let me explain my logic on this. God comes first. That's a given. The way it should be in every single situation that needs no explanation. Relationship second for two obvious reasons. As adults we have the option to literally "choose" who we want to spend the rest of our lives with. This person will hold your hand for your lifetime, this person will be present in all of your greatest accomplishments and even your downfalls, this person is your right hand, your teammate, this person is your biggest support, and your toughest teacher. This person is who you choose to love and who you choose to trust your life with, literally. You're at your best when you have the right person alongside you. Cheering you on, lifting you up, and just making you better. Just because you become a parent doesn't mean you are no longer a companion to someone else. In most situations (the right ones) you loved your significant other first. You loved them before you conceived with them. You should never put that relationship second. But in my case it's different. It's way different. It's hard and it's difficult but it's more than I could ask for. I loved Kayden before Ryan. I was Kayden's mom before I was Ryan's girlfriend but I now understand this (my second reason for putting my relationship first): I am the best me I can be when I am with Ryan. That is how I know he is "the one." I'm a better mom because of him. I want to be better and I want to be the best because that is the effect he has on me. My relationship with Ryan has a direct effect on my relationship, parenting skills, and guidance for my child. Making sure that my relationship continues to do these things means that I am also working on my relationship with Kayden. And this is exactly how the two are tied. I have no doubt in my mind that Ryan and I will be married, with our own family, centered around my perfect Kayden. I have no doubt in my mind that Ryan and I can overcome any and every single obstacle thrown our way. I look at our track record for making it through these bumps and I remember we're at 100%. I'm confident in my relationship. And it's so refreshing to feel that way. I don't need approval. I don't even need support. Anyone that loves me (even outside of my family) can see how happy Ryan makes me, and if they truly love me they will accept, support, and approve of my relationship solely on that fact. I believe a strong relationship develops from hardships. I also believe that love has no sense of time. You don't have to know someone for years to know the kind of person they are. Through gestures, mannerisms, and actions you can tell. I knew the man Ryan was 3 years ago just by first glance. And it fills my heart with pure joy to know that I was right about every assumption I made of the person he is. I'm a firm believe in fairy tales, 11:11, ladybugs, and penny's that are head side up. Which is why I get to love and know a real life Prince Charming. People will always talk. They always wanna see you doing worse than they are. That's the sad truth about the world. But I should have you all know that Ryan, Kayden, and I make a pretty tough team. You don't have a prayers chance at taking us down. 

Be thankful for your struggles and heartaches because the reward that comes from being patient and waiting for the right man surpasses anything you could ever dream of. 

All of my best always,

Ash