I Think I Might Love Him, Too.

My husband is a wonderful man. He's funny, caring and kind. He loves life and believes wholeheartedly in the general goodness of people. He rescued me from the depths of Hell, and I him.

When I met my husband, I was a miserable, sad thing. Depressed, not intending to go on with life much longer, absolutely sure that the world was this awful, hateful place and would never accept me. (Oh, to be Fat In America. It's like a fucking crime to some people.) I was 24 years old and sure that my life was meaningless. 

Just after Christmas 2006, I was working overnights as a cashier at the local Wal-Mart. A co-worker came through my line with her husband, and a man who worked for her husband. The man was cashing his paycheck, buying a few small things, and had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. He was also scruffy, with a full beard and a ponytail. He complimented me on my M*A*S*H T-shirt, saying he loved the show, too. My co-worker stood behind him, wide-eyed, and made happy gestures at this man. When he wasn't looking I gave a shake of my head. "Not into the homeless look." I told her later. Really, though, it was just the ol' conscience being sure of what a loser I really was. 

She didn't care, and decided that me and this guy were both coming to her house for new years eve. It was a set-up, through and through, and it worked like a charm. We talked all through the night, and then for three days after that. He was living in his friends garage, so he came over to my apartment. And stayed. As simple as that, we fell in love. 

My husband was addicted to crystal meth when he met me. I didn't know that. He spoke of drugs a little sometime in the first few days, and I told him simply that I do not do, or like to be around, that "drug shit." He told me he only did it once a month or so. Not too much later he confessed that that had been a lie, and he'd been a full-fledged addict for seven years. (He was 23. He started when he was 16.) Later still, he told me that he did it one time about a week after he met me, and felt so guilty he never touched it again. Just like that. Cold turkey. Love can do amazing things for the human body. 

We knew we were in love pretty quick, but it took 21 long days for him to say it. I wasn't about to say it first! We were laying in my bed, and he told me that he had called his mother earlier that day and... dot dot dot... "I think I might love you." 

I responded, quick as a bunny, that I think I might love him, too. Later, he confessed to me that the only reason he'd called his mother that day was to tell her he was in love, for real. No "I think I might" about it. 

He proposed to me on April 22nd, 2007. We were married on December 31st, 2007. Yeah, we got married on New Years Eve because we met on New Years Eve. It was too cute not to do it. 

Now, four and a half years later, we are just as in love. We have a beautiful son who is about to turn 3. He's been clean of drugs for four and a half years. We were both lost, alone, and searching for something we thought we would never find, and that fateful night, we found each other. We are happy together, and getting happier by the minute as we make our way through this stinking mud pit called life. He taught me the most important thing I will ever learn - true happiness is letting go. 

So happy Fathers Day, my love. I may have given you an awesome shirt and the best chair ever today, but you gave me a life. 

I love him. 

our song. (unconventional, i know.)

I have been asked, on many occasions, how I keep my sense of humor.

Living a life such as mine, many people might have had trouble. I haven't had the worst life ever, by any means. Much worse stories have have been told, throughout all of history. Mine, though, is my own, and here is a part of it.

This time of year blows. Most people, they love this time of year. The beginning of summer, warm weather, end of school, lots of fun. Me? I get depressed.

My mother was born June 14th, 1951. Yeah, that date just passed. She would have been 60 this year. I say "would have," because she died on November 3rd, 1997, at all of 46 years old. Taken by breast cancer after only a four year battle, the odds were against her. She got it at a young age. She discovered it when it was in Stage Four. She went into remission after the first round of chemo and radiation, but it came back with a vengence, all over her body, in the end. The doctors told us (and I, all of fifteen years old.) that there were so many tumors in her brain they did not even bother to count them. She went insane in the end, quite literally. Or maybe she was the most clear she'd even been in her life, who knows. She said she talked to God, and he spoke back to her. Funny, because she had never believed in God. I don't believe she was an athiest, I think she was like me. Just unable to accept that anyone knew what the fuck they were talking about.

My mother was cool. She was 16 years old in The Summer Of Love, graduated and turned 18 in 1969. She was a hippie. She did a lot of drugs. She had 6 kids. Four before me, then she divorced their father and married mine. She had one kid after me, whom she gave up for adoption. I found my sister on MySpace a few years back. I'll tell the story some day. And... she did a lot of drugs. She kind of always did, while she was pregnant, raising kids, dying. She wanted to be more a friend to me than a mother. This was a problem because, well, I had my own personality. My mother? Was not the type of person I was friends with. So we didn't get along so well. I loved her, and I was devestated when she died, and I still miss her, every single day. I've even forgiven all of the things she did to me in my childhood. I mean, I wouldn't be who I am if she hadn't. But really - having me sleep in the backseat of the car whe I'm 6 while you and your boyfriend go get drunk in the bar? Those were different times, I suppose. It took becoming a mother myself to forgive my mother her sins. Not because I understand them, but because I simply wish I had her here, with me, helping me be a mom.

My father, on the other hand, was only 28 when he died. The age I am now. I have officially lived longer than my own father already. I was 4 when he passed. Old enough to understand, old enough to miss him, and old enough that it still devestates me. He was ill as a teenager, and the illness caused kidney damage. The kidney damage went on and on - he even got a new one from his mother, my Grandmother. That failed too. All the kidney failure also caused his heart to fail. In 1987, when he died, he was to be one of the first in the nation to recieve a simultanious heart-and-kidney transplant. He died near the top of the list.

My father was also cool, and a lady killer. He was married 2 times before he met my mother, and was only 23 when he met her. He had another kid before me, my brother, whom I've never met. But guess what? He found me on MySpace a few years ago. (Yeah. That's gonna be a hell of a story when I tell it.) Anyway, from what I know about my father, I got his personality. He loved music and comedy, loved to joke and laugh, loved everyone and everything and life, even though he started dying when he was a teenager. He gave and gave and gave, and never expected anything back. In the end, a few people called him selfish, because he stopped sticking to his strict diet, stopped not doing all those things that were supposed to keep him "alive." But really, there is a huge difference between being alive and living, and my father chose to live. Perhaps that shortened his life a little, but probably not much, and he died a happy man.

So this time of year, this time when Flag Day, also known as my mother's birthday, and Fathers Day manage to be REALLY FUCKING CLOSE TOGETHER, I get a little bummed out. I think a lot about my own mortality when I think about my parents. They lived to an average age of 37, so that is when I expect to die. I've lived longer than my father, but damned if I don't have kidney problems. I have no money, I just wish I had someone whose doorstep I could show up on with my little family and KNOW we would have a roof over our heads and food in our belly's.

I don't think like this all the time. In fact, very rarely. Just when the calender forces me to.

Dude. Fuck calenders.

1. I am going to focus on my husband this fathers day, and not what I do not have
2. Even without your mother, there are plenty of Mother-Figures out there.
3. A baby is born with a need to be loved and never outgrows it. -Frank A. Clark

This was my moms favorite song. 

riding the short bus.

does anyone truly know what it is to be special? some think it has something to do with helmets and short buses. others think it's talent. others still are just convinced by what their mother told them. me? i never thought i was special, until i came down with a super-rare, totally fun disease.

it's called henoch-schonlein purpura. that's hen-ick-shawn-line per-per-uh. or HSP, if you want to be complicated. it's mainly a pediatric disease, and fairly rare then. to get it as an adult? well, let's just say you have to be very special, as i was diagnosed on may 11th. i've always been unique (weird.), and perhaps even a bit special (helmet.) but i never, ever, thought i'd get one of those one-in-a-million, no-cure, no-treatment, you're-pretty-much-fucked-if-it-turns-on-you illnesses. i thought i'd get boring old cancer, like everyone else.

the most unique trait of this unique disease is it's inability to decided what it wants to do. the only symptom that seems to be constant in everyone is the pupura, which is an insane bursting of blood vessels beneath your skin. usually they stick to the legs, but sometimes they're, you know, anywhere else. me personally, over the past 2 weeks i've had them everywhere but my back, forearms, and face. yeah, that includes the bottom of my feet. been there. been spotted. other non-specific symptoms include, but are naturally not limited to, joint inflammation, abdominal pain, and kidney problems. do you see how broad those three terms are? sometimes people don't even get those. and sometimes people get all of them.

like me. nothing too severe in the joint and abdominal categories, those come and go, and aren't too bad. the kidney category, though, has jumped into the spotlight. and as an adult with HSP, i am typical for that. as of this writing, i have absolutely no clue what is wrong with my kidney. i didn't go plural on that because lefty hurts the most, and i think righty is only aching from being overly active. my ailment, so far, is TBD. last week they thought it was an infection, but after a week on keflex and a trip back to the ER (that's my 5th trip in a month.) they determined that it is not an infection. in my kidney anyway. i have an infection somewhere! a pretty bad one, at that. but nobody knows where yet. and my kidney still hurts, and nobody knows why. also, i was given four (FOUR) shots of dilaudid, which is a pain killer stronger than morphine, within 5 hours, and had no break in pain, no real response at all. a week ago a single shot of the same drug turned me into a blubbering idiot for about 8 hours, and i felt no pain.

as a fan of the show "house," i am intrigued by the fact that i could be an episode! also by hugh laurie's sexiness. but that's another blog...