I only want to see you smiling…


I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the incredible power of a smile… A smile can be one of the most simple, sought after and disarming tools in any relationship…If you’ve ever known anyone in your life who can level you with their smile, then most likely your sending quite a few smiles back to them… Obviously, smiling is a chance for reciprocation, but I love the genuine feeling of knowing that someone is smiling back at you for the same reasons you can’t stop smiling at them…

I feel as if I live to see the corners of one particular mouth curl up… I see those teeth, those eyes brighten, and if I’m lucky, I hear the laughter I look for all day come rolling out of that beautiful mouth… I actually feel my soul swell with joy…I lift beyond this world and beyond its translation… it all starts with a smile…

Smiles between people who love one another generally stay quite frequent and powerful, right? I feel another thought of reciprocity coming on… I think it’s safe to say that a healthy relationship has nearly an equal number of smiles passing back and forth from one another… Similarly to what I’ve previously said about couples who hold hands and seem to be engaged in one another while out and about, etc, I would like to think that a couple that finds themselves smiling with one another kindly and frequently allows them to be in a more comfortable position to communicate with one another…

I will avoid bringing in another instance of pop culture, which I’m quite fond of as pertaining to controlling your “smiles and cries” as that’s all we have… maybe later… I’m trying to get off of the movie quote expansions for a while : )

Smiling…You learn that your loved one has 100s of smiles and throughout your life together you’ll find out what all of those smiles intend to infer… You learn the nervous/happy-smile from the “its only 4AM, and I’m quite sleepy-smile”… Figuring the difference between those two smiles most likely isn’t too difficult; However, coming to know someone’s smiles and their body language in general, throughout the course of the relationship, I feel, is a big part of enjoying your daily life together…

I try to ask questions when I feel I could possibly be misinterpreting what I’m seeing or feeling… I hope that if I can communicate my need to understand what I’m seeing/feeling, the relationship will benefit… Those moments of uncertainty can be both heavy and difficult… I feel the uncertainty in smile/lack of smile/body language can be helped with communication… I guess I also fear the need to ask “is something wrong”, “is everything okay”??? I’m learning, I claim to be an expert on nothing…

There is pure joy in recognizing the smiles that leave no room for doubt… I feel those smiles are some of the best reasons to be alive.

Smiles are so simple…Even a baby will flash a smile when they seek affirmation… Speaking of babies, if you think about it… we all started with a smile... when our mothers and fathers eyes first met… In those first few moments how many of them do you think started with a scowl towards one another??? Most likely, we can all trace our existence back to a moment… a moment that contained … two smiles… I think that’s a lovely thought. If our very existence started with just one exchange of smiles, consider the possibility of what the next smile could bring…

Think about the “mock smiles” that we will offer a passer by or stranger… Though still firmly classified as a smile and friendly in nature, that moment in passing isn’t a real smile of joy or happiness… What are we trying to convey with those minor face twitches?… We’ll barely make eye contact, most likely not say a word, but we will break the corners of our mouth just slightly and briefly upward to signify something… I think we are flashing that most meager of smiles to say, “I intend no harm to you, and I very much hope you intend no harm to me “…

Granted… this opens up a very long dialogue of possible discernments on whether or not this “smile” is a reaction from a love based thought or a fear based thought…. My thought is that the action is somewhere in the middle. If we were over taken with fear based logic in those moments of encountering a stranger, we most likely wouldn’t react at all. If we were overtaken with love based logic we’d be doing much more than the little flash half smile thing… I think that brief moment is a type of limbo for our minds and hearts… We don’t know what the passer by’s intentions are, we are merely stating our position… Again, that’s just my thought…

Sometimes all I need and want is an affirming smile. When I know I’ve behaved nervously, borderline badly or been frightened with or without reason, all I want and need is that smile… The smile that says, “Everything will be okay”…

All the things a smile can say, yet another reason to love the smile… This single gesture can send a mood as simple as “I come in peace”, “I… think its time for bed”… or “I love you and I want you in no uncertain terms”… That is a great deal of possibility, from such a simple gesture…

Everyone wants more “smiles” in their relationship. However I think we don’t ask ourselves if we are giving our loved ones enough reasons to want to smile at us…By this I mean… somewhere along the way, we bury ourselves with expectation, labels and take for granted why we fell in love with our mate… I think we have to send those messages of love and thankfulness daily... Prioritize your life accordingly…Remember that first smile, if we can come back to that feeling, maybe problems will shrink before our very eyes…

There are dangers of interpretation and translation with smiles. I think we have to be careful with whom we share our smiles with… By extending that smile we are extending a piece of us…the smile may very well be the determinant of what “piece” we are offering…

Just as much as I hope that there are looks, acts, touches, words, feelings and thoughts reserved only for me in my relationship… I also am hopeful that I’m the one and only recipient of certain smiles…

I know I’ve faced some hard times with heavy feelings in my life, times that I desperately needed a smile… I just knew that those feelings would never subside, that my smile wouldn’t return… I’ve been pleasantly proven wrong about those feelings, as I believe most of us have… How did I overcome those feelings? Whether a smile, or love, time or truth, I don’t care to debate… I follow my heart and offer a smile…

Naturally, there are daily obstacles that need to be overcome, some we get past alone, and some we need help with… Life continues to happen, all around me, all the time and all over me, just as it does for everyone else. Life has to be lived, talked through and thought out… Many times I don’t know where to start… I’ll start with a smile…take a long deep breath and know that everything will be okay… Continue to give love, time and energy and smiles to the people and places you need the most… It’s impossible to make a mistake if we are doing this

Whether the love of your world or the stranger passing by, … we all need that reminder for the first time or for the five hundredth time of any given day…“I intend no harm to you, and I very much hope you intend no harm to me “

Don’t give your smile away to just anyone, but maybe don’t be too stingy with it either…keep in mind how powerful your smile can be… we are all freaking out, act accordingly

: )

Tune Suggestion:
Chatterbox
By David Mead