Dress NA-KD FASHION  Shoes STEVE MADDEN 

I’ve never been the forest loving kind of girl.. or nature hungry I should say.. until I met C.
I grew up in a small town, born & raised in a working class neighborhood. As soon as I hit 18 I was off to the city.. where I’d dreamed of living my whole life. I never really stopped to appreciate what surrounded me. Up until this last year….
I don’t open up much about my personal life but here we go.  Hang in there with me & read this through.

This is my first time ever writing this out.. Clint’s dad has ALS. There I said it. It’s not a secret but it’s definitely not something we like to talk about. (Clint, if you’re reading this don’t be upset with me for sharing too much.  Maybe after reading this you’ll understand how deep my love is for your caring side.. to everyone & everything). Things have been rough this past year. If I had a penny for every time someone asked me when I’m getting married or when I’m moving back to Paducah, I would have a treasure chest overflowing. If I had a penny for every time I had to explain why our wedding is on hold, why we live in Lexington, why we are moving to Paducah, why we are waiting to settle down, I would have a 2nd treasure chest overflowing. The truth is.. we are lost. But we are lost in love. And that’s what’s really important.

Our circumstances aren’t like your usual, engaged couple.  I moved back from ATL. With my blog & modeling, I’ve traveled a lot this year.. Clint is finishing up school. His dad is battling ALS. & the pressure of the future is in the back of our mind. It’s the one thing we have control over and I think that’s what we are trying to savor.

Why has it been rough? Why is that one of the happiest times of our lives is also the worst?  That might be a better question for Clint, but I can try to answer it from my perspective…  because we are still learning. we are still growing. we are still falling in love with each other. we are still planning our future. we are hanging on.. to these last moments, to the happier times ahead, and experiencing some of the most difficult emotions we will ever have to deal with. I guess this is apart of God’s plan.. and sometimes that’s hard to swallow… but his plan is better than ours. That’s what we have to remeber.

Lately, you might have noticed I’ve been going back home a lot with Clint. Every chance he gets he wants to go home to spend time with his dad.. and to be surrounded by nature I think. It’s like this past year he has taken an overwhelming interest in his farm, his land, the nature at his feet, and his home. I have a theory.. 1. I think he just loves being in the outdoors 2. I think it’s his way of holding onto something that was once his dads & 3. He cares so much about the upkeep and maintenance of the land.  I think when he works hard out there, he feels rewarded with a job well done.

So naturally, since he’s taken an interest in all of this I kind of have too.  His passions and excitement about the types of trees he wants to plant, leaving feed for the deer, watching the fish in his pond, setting up trail cams to catch wildlife on film, creating paths by the river, bush hogging fields to see over the hills, and so much more have reciprocated into my excitement now too. I’ve never seen him care about something so much (except for me & Oslo) as he does all these things.

I think the sweetest part about it all is that he loves sharing it with his dad. I watch them bond over these things and it’s memories I want to hold onto for forever. Memories I want to share with my kids and my grandkids.. Clint feels the same way. He’ll go spend the day out on the farm and the first thing he does when he gets home is tell his dad about his day.  They’ll scroll through pictures on the computer of the images the trail cams caught. They’ll sit out on the dock and watch the fish at night. They’ll look for birds and talk about what to do with certain plots of land.  All while I sit back and take mental pictures. One day, Clint won’t have his dad to share all of this with, so I want to be the one that he shares it with. I’ll be his person.. forever and for always… even if that means I have to sit in the trees with him & get tick bites on my butt (that actually happened two weeks ago.. sorry if that’s tmi.. just thought it was funny)

By now you’ve probably caught on that Clint and his family live on a lot of land in Paducah. This past year not only has Clint been exploring it, I have too. I’ll catch myself wanting to run the hills out there and take night walks down their driveway just to see the sunset reflect on the pond. It’s meditating and peaceful.  It’s the moments when I’m only surrounded by nature that I catch myself thinking.. soul searching..  Finally, I’m starting to understand why Clint loves it all so much..

Times are hard, emotions are everywhere, and the future is overwhelmed with the unexpected.  But when I’m out in the woods, riding the four wheeler, catching a glimpse of the deer, or watching the sunrise on my run.. my mind stops. nothing else matters.  I think C feels the exact same way.  It’s where we’ve come to find peace.

 We’ve grown to love it so much I think we might even get married out there.. that’s about the only wedding talk we’ve discussed.. right now, our plates are full and our hearts are heavy.

we are lost.. but we are lost in love.. and that’s whats really important.

I’ve come to learn, that sometimes you have to lose yourself, to find out who you really are.. and deep in the woods, surrounded by nature.. you can do just that.