6 years ago I was struggling to earn enough money just to pay my rent and bills. I was living on my own for the first time in my life and I was going to lose my place and move in with my parents again if I did not find a way to get extra income. I had applied to dozens of places but most companies were not willing to work with my already crazy schedule that was in place at fish killers. (Not the real name, obviously.) I heard it through my cousin that Home oh no was hiring. So I thought what the heck and applied. I was hired within the week.
Orientation began in April and my cousin and I spent a week cooped up in a little room where we learned the ins and outs of our jobs. Needless to say, orientation was very boring. Really, how much can they teach you about watering flowers and such when they cannot show you firsthand? Diagrams on the white board don’t adequately convey the right amount of moisture needed for plants to survive. To help pass the time and not make us want to take our shiny new box knives and introduce them to our wrists, my cousin and I were picking future boyfriends out of the employee pictures hanging on the wall. We had critiqued through most all of the pictures without me finding one that was appealing when suddenly a picture jumped out at me. It was a picture of a man in a skin tight black tee-shirt with his arms crossed over his chest. To say that he looked built was like calling the Mona Lisa a doodle. The shirt was pulled so tight that the seams looked like they were going to rip open. This man was mine!
Whenever he would come down to the garden department I would get all flustered and I would try to avoid him while still keeping an eye on him. Mack says that I was stalking him. I would laugh about it, but for the fact that it is kind of true. Which fits into one of my all time favorite quotes about love: "I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in." ;)
One day in June, he helped me and some other employees load a big BBQ into someone’s truck and he spoke to me for the first time. I thought I would melt into the floor. We hadn't even been on a date or kissed and I was hooked. I was already envisioning the house with the picket white fence and the kids in the yard. I didn’t even want kids, but I could see them with him. The next night we both were working the closing shift and when we got off of work, I waited around and asked him to go with me to go get some ice cream. Little did I know that asking him to go get some ice cream would change my life. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. It was for me.
At work the next day I was giddy. I couldn’t even focus and every time I saw him, I got butterflies. Two weeks after the ice cream “date” we were talking about what we liked to do in our spare time and he mentioned that he liked to play cards and board games. I told him that my family got together once a month and played poker and I asked him if he wanted to go. He already knew my cousin Stefani who was going to be there, so he willingly agreed.
At work the next day I was giddy. I couldn’t even focus and every time I saw him, I got butterflies. Two weeks after the ice cream “date” we were talking about what we liked to do in our spare time and he mentioned that he liked to play cards and board games. I told him that my family got together once a month and played poker and I asked him if he wanted to go. He already knew my cousin Stefani who was going to be there, so he willingly agreed.
Everything was going well and he got along with my family perfectly. However, I was certain that he had no interest, a fact that became obvious to me when I dropped him back home and we just sat in my car. Do nothing. I remember looking out the window and commenting on a cat that walked by and when I looked back at him he reached over and kissed me. It was perfect. It was aggressive and sweet and tender and just…AHHHHH. No words. We pulled apart after a few minutes and he said goodnight. I sat in the driveway for a minute while I tried to compose myself but I knew that I had to leave or he really would think I was a stalker. So I went around the corner a half a block and did a little happy dance in my car. If I was giddy before, I was damn near flying.
About a week later I heard him telling someone that he was looking for a place to live and I told him that an apartment opened up above me in my building. I got him in touch with my landlord and he moved in. Two days after he moved in we were hanging out at my place and our relationship escalated further. I won’t go into detail other than to say HOLY CHRIST!!! That man knows his stuff. It was like everything you read about and wish you could experience, all of that and so much more
We began spending every moment together that we could at work and at home. There was no point to us having two apartments since the only time we were ever apart was when his kids were sleeping. Even then we were always finding ways to be together. We sure spent a lot of time on his sofa that’s for sure. After he lived in his apartment for a month, we began talking about marriage. There was no longer hesitation or unease on my end. Marriage was no longer a piece of paper. It was everything. Of course I would marry him. And I did exactly that a year and a half later.
I know that there is no such thing as fairytale love. You don’t hear birds singing and see flowers dancing. I knew going in to this relationship that love takes work. If you aren’t working at love, you don’t care enough. There is no such thing as perfect. People do not meet and get married and never have a problem. That just isn’t reality. Anyone who thinks that kind of love exists is naïve on a level that really is quite sad. I knew all of this when I met this man but I had no idea that I would get as close to perfect as someone can get. This man was meant for me in every way possible. Our bodies were made to fit each others in every way. Our hearts were made to love one another and our souls were meant to spend eternity together as man and wife. It was as if God made each of us with the sole purpose of the other in mind. It is no wonder we both failed at relationships in the past. We were both with people who were below us, people who were inadequate and incapable of loving us the way that we deserved.
Every dream that I never knew I had always wanted, came true when I met this man. I take this time to celebrate him and to celebrate our love and to hope that each one of you find the person who completes you in the way that my husband completes me. He is my one, my only, and my always and I will love him for the rest of my life and in the life that comes after.
