Day 3: Moment

December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail.

One moment. Out of a whole year. Gah. Well my mind immediately goes to our trip to Lebanon, which truly was life changing for me. Most notably the day we went to Baalbek.

From the moment I got there, I was struck by the sheer enormity of it. The sun was SO warm, but it didn't feel oppressive... It was just nice... We walked through this huge, old temple, and I was just SO HAPPY to be sharing this with my husband Nick. Nick's a homebody, that is happiest camping in the snow (no joke) so talking him into a 10 hour flight to the Middle East was not the easiest feat... But the look on his face as we walked through 3000 year old ruins, seeing stones so large and so heavy it seems absolutely impossible to imagine humans without machines ever moved them, architecture so exact that it could not be replicated today with all the world's computers and lasers... My whole chest filled with such love and warmth, I grabbed his hand and said something like, "isn't this cool?" He leaned over and kissed the side of my head and said in my ear, "I'm so happy to be doing this with you."
Baalbek changed from Greek to Roman to Christian to stripped of most statuary during the world wars. It has symbolism from the star of David before it was the symbol for Judaism, to the swastika, symbol for eternity, before it was stolen by the Nazis. To see something so important, and so much bigger than yourself with the person so important and big in your life has a strangely calming effect - and immediately snaps things into perspective.
I have been hugely lucky to have experienced this this year, just thinking about it makes me feel alive all over again.