I've been working on several titles for this blog... "21 Years of Wedded Bliss", "21 Years of Hell", "21 Years of Great Make-Up Sex but I Still Hate Your Guts", "We Made it This Far, But Can We Survive Another 21", "21 Years of You being a Selfish, Cranky Ass & Me Being Emotionally Unstable, Big Mouth, loose cannon", "21 Years of No Romance, Raising Kids, Paying Bills, and Other Boring Mundane Things", "21 Years of Wild and Crazy Times & Happy Lifelong Memory Creating". Even though any one of these could have been true at any given moment within the last 21 years, the more important thing is that they were all true!!
This past week the new JCPenney flier/catalog came in the mail. Now here is where I tell you that inspiration comes in many forms and you never know when it's gonna hit you. I was flipping through the catalog and trying to decide if there was any good stuff in it and how I felt about their new approach to sales, when I stumbled upon the story of Winnie & Marshall Kuykendall who've been married for 83 years. I'm still not sure why this story was in the catalog, other than Valentine's Day falls in this month, but I sat and read the entire story. And when I was done, I thought how nice to have your story forever immortalized in this catalog. Shouldn't everyone have their story on paper, or type, for their children to remember and share with their children, and their children's, children and so on. So I was inspired to share "our" story, on our 21st anniversary and BOOM this blog post was born!! I've been soul searching, trying to decide how much detail you all really want to know... If it gets to be too much or you are bored, I'll understand, skip a few paragraphs!!
My future husband and my brother played baseball on the same summer league team. I loved baseball and my brother so I went to most of the games. One day, at a game, my mom asked this blond haired boy if he would mind getting her a drink from the big water jug, and he politely did. When he came back with it, I asked if he'd mind getting me one too, he said NO! And he really didn't get it. JERK!!! And that is the very first time I met him!! Well this kid hung out with my brother and his friends all Summer, seems he had just moved into our "hood". That Summer I worked a bit, but I still saw him quite a bit too. We became friends, he'd even hang out when my brother wasn't there, which seemed perfectly normal to me, I had lots of guy friends. We went to the movies once with a group of friends, it all seemed normal and perfectly harmless to me. Then around homecoming time, he asked me if I'd go to the dance with him... Well that caught me way off guard, but I said sure. No one else had asked, {I wasn't a hot commodity}and I kinda had this philosophy that if a boy had the guts to ask a girl out, you should always say yes. It's a date, what could it hurt, if you hate them, no more dates! And that my friends is how it ALL started!! This is where I should tell you that I was almost 18, a senior in high school and Ryan was 15, and a Sophomore in high school!!! YES, I'm serous!!! I should also add that I was a bit of a train wreck! I'd been in a few serious relationships that had not gone well, he'd never really been in one at all. We dated, we broke up, we got back together, we broke up... this cycle went on for several years. I had a lot of issues to deal with and he was very jealous and possessive. But after he graduated he bought a ring and asked me to marry him!! For real, this guy was a gluten for punishment!! I said yes, and we started to plan a wedding. Well then early December we figured out I was prego! So we moved the wedding ahead to February!! Sometimes I think that he was pretty sure I would chicken out, so he got me knocked up!!WAHAHAH!!! Which turned out to be the best thing that could have ever happened to me, really!!!! Then came the second baby, not long after! Somewhere along the way I decided that if WE were gonna survive I might need to consider some counseling, which we could not afford, so I read a lot of self help books, and we fumbled our way through life. Our way of doing this has never been considered normal by ANY therapist on this planet! But we did things our way!! Sometimes you may see us talk to each other and think dang they are mean! It may look ugly to some people, we call it keeping it real! We both say what we think, and are honest with the other, about all things that matter. I say "Does this make me look fat?", he says "YES, as big as a barn!!" I know he will never let me leave the house in something ugly! We decided a long time ago that neither of us is prefect but accepting each others imperfections is what's kept us together.
And never trying to change the other person! He is who he is, he does what he does. I am who I am, I do what I do! We accept that! It works for us. He is grumpy, I am too happy. He can be an ass, I spend too much money. I have issues and insecurities, he has the patience and understanding of a saint. He is quiet, I talk too much. He's an adrenaline junkie, I enjoy the sorts he participates in and I'm content to watch, knowing someday he could be a vegetable. I got fat, he turned into a chubby chaser. He has social anxiety, I enjoy being around people. He behaves like a proper young man in public and usually keeps his opinion to himself, I behave badly at times, and say what I'm thinking without thinking. He is confident and has taught me to be confident. He is very serious and I have taught him to laugh. We embody the phrase opposites attract and yet we share a lot of interests and values. We both LOVE music, we share political opinions, and we {mostly} agreed on how to raise the kids. We have given each other as much as we have taken from the other.
No REAL relationship is perfect and we are definitely no exception to that rule, that's for sure. There have been good times and bad times. Happy times and sad times. There's been give and there's been take. And there have been times I wondered how/why neither of us shot the other in the head with the hunting rifles{for real}!!!!
We didn't do it by the rules but we did it our way and we will continue to do it our way!!! Hopefully for the rest of our lives, for better or worse...
So, if you read this, Ryan, Happy Anniversary!
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