So to assist my cutie-baby-sweetie-pie with her Ignite Your Spark Conference I ended up taking last Thursday and Friday off from work. Yeah, I’m a pretty kick ass husband. Hmm, maybe I should start teaching a class. I could call it, um, ohhh, I know! KAHN… Kick Ass Husbands National. That way when people look into the sky and yell KAAAAAAAAHHHHN! It could actually be considered a good thing. I’d like to say I’m taking the whole “KAAAAAAHN!” thing back, but I can’t really. That’s because I think the Kirk approach to Kahn was the original take on it. There’s nothing to take back. If anything I’d be completely reconstructing it. I guess you could say I’m just taking it.

I think this would be the first KAHN lesson:
Chapter 1 – Get Married.
It seems to me that in order to become a kick ass husband the first thing that would need to happen is for you, in fact, to become one. Sure if I really wanted to I could change it to KAPN, Kick Ass Partners National, but frankly I don’t appreciate the lack of pun and I’m not especially keen on accessorizing with eye patches and birds sitting on your shoulder.

Side Note: I will concede that if you choose to acquire the status of husband via some other means not limited to the concept of traditional, or nontraditional, union ceremonies involving rings, flowers, and/or shotguns, then I will ask that you submit your process for how you acquired such status. It will be reviewed and voted on by me and a bottle of Chianti. For the record, the bottle always votes yes and your chances of getting in do increase as the evening progresses.

The conference was a fabulous time for both me and my ego. Everyone was so kind and friendly and happy. There were a few things that I consistently heard from women while at the conference.

1. “You’re Angela’s husband? Oh! It’s so nice to meet you.”
2. “I love your wife.”
3. “I’ll bet you can’t wait for this to be over.”
4. “All the support you’ve given her is just amazing. You’re amazing.”

I always responded to the second statement with an ecstatic and resounding, “Me too!” because it was both clever, cute, and true. Hmm, that seems to exceed the both identifier. Let’s just go with clever and true then. It was the third statement that always left me a little confused. I mean I understood what they meant, but with all the hours, tears, joy, worry, excitement, and other roller coaster of emotions that you embrace throughout a year of putting a conference like this together, I could wait. I wanted to savor every moment I could of those two days. It had earned that from me, and I deserved experience all I could before it ended.

I wish that theme was able to stay concrete throughout the event, but here’s one of the things I learned… hauling hundreds of books up and down stairs and trying to clam presenters down when they mailed something and UPS had not delivered it on time, and having an endless stream of questions directed to me that I just couldn’t answer to help assist those asking the questions, does have a tendency to wear on ones bubbly exterior. It left me a little like a helium balloon that has exhausted most of its supply of pixie dust. It’s not popped or deflated, it’s just lost its soaring ability. It mostly just hovers and begins moving a lot slower than it did before.

I think I may have managed to leave the conference a bit stronger than when I started it. Again, this is solely due to the hours of lifting and hauling heavy boxes up and down flights of stairs. Let’s just say that when I got out of bed Saturday morning my legs, especially my calves, started a revolt. Much like the towns people carrying torches on the way to ol’ Doc Frank’s place. My legs and feet felt like they were burning. Every step hurt and I didn’t even wear heels! Next time I’m getting those gel shoe inlay things.

Emotionally, sure it was exhausting, but there were those moments that picked you up, dusted you off, and got you ready to start all over again. One moment that just killed me, and not in a “oh no zombies, run for your life or they’ll ea…AHhhhh!” kind of way, but in the “I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to cry, ok I’m going to cry” kind of way. It was a special break out session all the VIP guests got to experience with Lisa Nichols.

The thing about Lisa is that you either know who she is, which will cause you to get excited about this next bit. Or, is some lady you have never heard of her before, which probably won’t mean as much, but still worth reading about.

So Lisa is giving her presentation. Chatting with everyone in the room, making everyone laugh, and most cry. Encouraging everyone and letting them know that now matters, and so do they. As the end of her talk drew near, she decided to give away a few items to some people in the audience that she felt could use them. Out of the 70+ people in the room, guess who she calls up? No… it wasn’t me, but it was my little sister. This got her all emotional, which got my parents, who were sitting next to me, all emotional, which got me all emotional. Hey, hit my thumb with a hammer and swear for a good ten minutes and eventually I’ll be fine. But put my little sister in the front of a room crying tears of joy, transition and hope, and you better just pass me the tissues as soon as you finish grabbing some for yourself.

Lisa was emotional, amazing, and healing, so in a word… um… let’s go with emazaling. Yes… YES! I do believe that covers it nicely. It was two days of people coming together to encourage each other, listen to each other, help each other, and empower each other. When you are surrounded by that much love and support, it doesn’t matter if you arrived under dark clouds. You become the sun that dissipates those clouds, and you shine. More than that though, you know it’s ok for you to shine. I saw that a lot at the conference… it was beautiful.

Only a year to go until we get to do it all over again!

To those of you who made it to the event, and/or helped us out with the event, thank you, thank you thank you. I love you all. Feel free to share some of your thoughts on event.

Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: yelling Kahn, shotgun wedding, carrying boxes, happy woman, and box of tissues.