My Tickers

Thursday, April 28, 2011


This week will be a different post, although it is still a post about my past it will take a different swing. This week I am reflecting differently because this week is a wonderful week for me!

This week every year I like to think back upon my life and I tend to try to make sense of things, this is the week for me to feel like I have found the answers that I have searched for. Maybe they aren't the real answers, maybe they are just partial answers, but they are answers that make me feel better for 1 week every single year. I will share these with you today, this is what Thoughtful Thursday is about this week. 

The big question....why did I grow up in that home, that life that horrible existence? 

The answer has to be broken down and so I will share it with you. If I had not been born into that nightmare of an existence I would not understand pain and have sympathy on those around me. I would not know how to survive hardship as well as I do now. If I had not spent those first 11 years and 4 months in that home my life would have been different from what it is today. Had I not survived those 11 years and 4 months not only would I be missing from this world, but the lives of those I have encountered would also have changed and my son would not exist. Therefore, surviving those 11 years and 4 months was important.
If I had not been placed into foster care I would not have learned that the life I was living was not normal and that there was life after abuse. I would not have been able to be friends with the people I built relationships with over the years. I would not have been best friends with Angel and I would not have spent so many nights at her house listening to Barry Manilow, sneaking into her fathers sap mill to steal maple syrup. It simply would not have been allowed and so I would not have those precious memories and neither would she. She would have a different best friend! I would not have been able to spread my wings and fly a little and I certainly would not have been able to contemplate college. I would not have received the scholarship for foster children to help me go to the school of my choice. More likely than not, if we had not been placed in foster care, my older sister would not have gotten that same scholarship and gone to the college of her choosing and married her husband who managed a KFC. If I had not ended up in the foster home of the religious kind, I would not have been encouraged to choose a religious college in Massachusetts.

If I had not had a falling out with that religious family before I left for college, I would not have had a need to stay with my sister in New York and work for her husband at the KFC he managed on my vacations. If I had not learned the ways of the KFC I would not have been confident enough to walk down the street from my college and get a job working at the KFC right there. If I did not work at that KFC I would never have served that young man his large fries, large Mt. Dew and small gravy most nights of the week. If I had not worked at that KFC I would not have been invited by his room mate to their apartment for a party after work. If I had not gone to that party I never would have met my husband face to face!

May 3, 1991 I went to the apartment of a guy who had invited me over for some drinks and a gathering of friends. I was curious because I wasn't much of  a party girl but I needed to socialize and make some friends. I needed to let my hair down. So I went to that apartment and I remember it so well, it was a nice day and I was sitting there on the couch and Mike says to me that his room mate would be home any minute. I asked if he was cute, he laughed and said he was kind of boring because all he did was work and sleep and watch tv. He talked about how his room mate would come home from work and fall asleep on the couch. I asked again if he was cute and he says that I could see for myself. He walked in the door and there he stood, not too tall, long hair, and my jaw dropped. I must have looked like my dog looks when he's staring at his food dish but I'm telling him he has to stay and wait. He had on these blue/grey work pants that hugged his nice tight butt and this leather jacket that was only zipped up half way. He had no shirt on under it and his chest muscles were to die for! I could see myself running my fingers over that chest...oh he was some major eye candy! 

I was instantly IN LOVE! This was the man I was destined to marry! This was the man I was supposed to be with forever! 

We have never been apart since that day!

A couple of weeks later he told me he thought he was falling in love with me, 1 month to the day June 3, 1991 we got our first apartment together. We simply knew we were going to work. I don't know how we knew, it was just perfect, it was amazing, he was amazing and I couldn't have been happier! Already in that 1 month he had done more for me than anyone had ever done. The man knew me for 3 days, yet when I asked him to drive me to the doctors to have a surgery and to drive me back home after, he did it without a complaint. When I found out that lump was pre-cancerous cells he held me and comforted me and told me everything was going to be okay. 

5 years from the day we met, May 3, 1996 we exchanged our vows formally. We knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of time. It was an amazing ceremony surrounded by friends and my new family...my biological family wasn't there. My sissy couldn't make it and the others didn't care to or I didn't care to have them there so I didn't invite them. This was my day, my time to shine and it was my day to be happy! My foster family that I had the falling out with was there, my foster father performed the ceremony. My foster mother, who had taken the greatest offense to my teenage rebellion even smiled and congratulated me. It was a fairy tale kind of day, a day I was destined to have.



After that day, things moved rather amazingly. We bought our house, we bought a new car and we went snowboarding every possible chance we had. We enjoyed just being us, but I wanted more, I wanted to be a mommy. Hubby resisted, as most men do in their early and mid 20's and it was ok for awhile. We were having fun and it was good to not have to worry about anything more than the cats and where the most snow had fallen so we could go riding at the best mountain. We fished in the summer, we snowboarded in the winters, we shared so many happy memories and some where along the way I started to grow up, to see that my life was no longer what it had been but it was now whatever I could dream.

If I had not dreamed with this wonderful man, if I had not gone through everything I have, if I had a different start I would definitely have a different end...and this ending is looking pretty darn good. My husband may drive me up one wall, across the ceiling, and back down the other side...and vice verse since I can't deny that I don't drive him a little crazy too....but through all that he is still the man I love, the man I was born for, the man who was created to complete me!

This coming Tuesday we will be celebrating 20 years together. We have been legally married for only 15 of those but I always go by the bigger number because our hearts were dedicated before that paper was signed, before my name changed and it was official. Everyone knew it was going to happen, we were a couple, we were simply meant to be.



No comments: