This blog will not always be as sappy as this particular entry is but I'll use this to sort of introduce Brandon and I to whomever may happen across us. So forgive this and I promise to try an entertain you later.
My life as I knew it ended on April 3, 2010 when my mom died. My life, up until that point had been a series of immature decisions that would only provide excuses as why to not start my life as an adult. I was 32 when my mom died. I hadn't finished my degree, I had not found a sustainable relationship. I had not made any mature, adult decision that would affect anything long-term in my life.
After my mother died, I had to re-examine the life I had been living (one that constantly revolved around her). I decided to take a break from school for awhile because I was unable to concentrate on anything. I went back to my old job (the dreaded big-box - Walmart) as a temporary job just to make the bills I had acquired. It was there, almost a year after her death, that I found some new direction. I met Brandon. I said it, first, to him and then later repeated it to others that it felt like I had walked around the corner, ran into him and said "Well there you are! I've been looking everywhere for you!"
Brandon was 26 when we met and he was in an almost identical situation. He had stayed with his parents, not out of necessity, but more out of a lack of decision making and better interest. He had not found anyone that he was particularly interested in staying with long-term. He was working a jobs that he didn't really enjoy. He was hesitant at first when it came to the idea of dating me (so I was I - did I want to get involved with someone at work and have it end badly like so many others before?).
But boy-oh-boy... From date #1 we both knew this was different. We were the stunted 16 year-olds that we never were back then. We flirted, giggled and pretended not to want to touch each other when that was all we wanted to do. It wasn't long before we decided that we were actually dating and in a very short time, using those magic words (something neither of us did very lightly).
He is everything to me. He accepted me with all the things that had put off so many before. I use the word accepted but that wasn't really it. If it's something he noticed, he loved it or he didn't care. There were so many things that I would focus on that he never even noticed. He still doesn't. And he even looks at me like I'm crazy when I point them out. I guess he has a point because I don't see the little flaws in him either. And besides, as we have both mentioned several times... if we didn't have flaws, we would be that attractive to the other.
Brandon and I were married in a hurry with the potential of the military life looming ahead of us so we didn't have the dream wedding we had intended but it was beautiful anyway. We planned the wedding in a week in a little office of the JP in the back of a local bait shop. I have never regretted that decision. I've never said the "what-if's" that usually come with big life decisions. I asked him the same recently if he'd ever wished for anything different or regrets and he says he has none. Would he have changed the circumstances? Maybe... but the decision? No. And it's the same for me. I love him. I'm happy.
