Team Peeta

Disclaimer: If you have no clue what I mean from that title and don't plan on reading Hunger Games, please read on.  If you're thinking about reading the books, get on it, come back and check this out.  If you have read Hunger Games and haven't finished Mockingjay yet STOP reading.  You can't get mad at me when I ruin a book because you have no self-control.

Okay, I love Peeta!  I have loved him from the minute he confessed that he loved Katniss.  I mean, how sweet and romantic and wonderful is he?!?!  I did like Gale, he was great, but more in a brother type of way.

As someone who is an avid Team Jacob fan, as I was reading the final book in the series this morning, I got thinking, why aren't their Team Peeta shirts?  Huh?!  I mean, their story is just about as realistic, if not more so, than a bunch of vampires and werewolves!  And they're solving real problems like war and hunger and loss not just psychotic baby vampires or controlling totalitarian-esque sociopaths!

"I'll tell them how I survive it.  I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away.  That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do."

See, that's real.  There are things that come and things that go in our life that make us think- how will I ever find happiness again?  Where will I choose hope?  I never understood what hope was and now that I feel like it's the elusive dream, I long for it even more.  How do you go on when nothing seems to be going with you?  When it seems like you're the only think in your life moving in the right direction and that's a stretch?  And the same things that made it bearable for her in the book, make it bearable for me.  I think about the friends I've made in this time of trial.  I think about the people who've reached out to me to take away my burdens and wipe away my tears.  Those people around me who've chosen hope- they help me go on. 

And Jason, he helps me go on.  His enduring constancy, his always happy face (he gave me a dirty look when I tried to swipe a bite of his ice cream and I was shocked- I don't think he's ever given me a dirty look before.  Trust me, I'm the dirty looker in our relationship).  His eternal optimism, his hopeful outlook.  Trust me, that man has reasons to be depressed to be down deep and dirty in the that nasty place and instead he helps me!

Our experiences this last year have taught me that it's easy to find a companion who you can be happy with when times are good.  Everyone wants to be there then.  It's when the times are hard that you find out what you're made of and who you want near you.  (Which is so cliche!  I think there's a country song with that very line in it! But I swear I stand by that no matter what!  It is my standing advice in those bridal shower advice books.)  You can be happy together, but can you cry together?

Anyway, I finished the book today and the final book brought me to tears.  To tears!  It was beautiful.  It was real.  It was life!  (Sorry, Bella, but you've never yanked even a sniffle from me, and I'm a cryer.) Collins put so well that choice you make when you choose who you want to be with.  When you decide who you want next to you through the rest of your life.  (Trust me, I was worried it wasn't going to be Peeta after all he had to go through to get back to her.)

"That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred.  I have plenty of fire myself.  What I need is the dandelion in the spring.  The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction.  The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses.  That it can be good again."

Just typing it made me cry!  That's Jason- he's my bright yellow and I'm the fire.  (He even calls me Spitfire sometimes.)  And that right there is why girls like me end up with guys like him, because they bring us back to hope.  They make us smile when we want to cry.  They bring us peace when we want to scream.  And for that, I will always vote for the Peetas in the world.  The men that keep the world running, regardless of how us women try to stop it in its tracks.