I just feel like writing.
Stuff happens to me daily. Life seems really strange at times. I go the gamete of having Hawaiian Fruit punch dropped behind me, in Winco, by my 8 year-old-son, resulting in red splotches up the back end of me. What woman is okay with red splotches up her back end? The other end of the spectrum is very serious stuff, having a knowledge of weird stuff going on in peoples lives and not knowing what to do with the information.
My heart wants the best. So in the case of the Hawaiian punch, I try my best to comfort my very remorseful young son about the accident and suck up my pride and deal with my embarrassment. In the case of the weird stuff I come across, I turn to my pastor for advise. In his wisdom, his answers are much more mild than my impulses. Yet, my heart is continually uneasy.
More stuff. I walk into the grocery store yesterday and one of the ladies who works at the register waves and talks to me across many feet of store, she wants to know where I have been. Then she walks over to me and gives me a big hug. How sweet, I'm thinking. What warrants such love from a lady at the grocery store? I did offer to have coffee with her when I knew she was down.....was that what endured her to me? I then go on with my shopping with my middle 11 year old son. He wanted to get a Vitamin water to share with me, so instead of my usual "No" answer, I said yes. We drank, finished shopping, and went to go to check-out where the lady mentioned above was. My middle son likes to pretend that he is a warrior of some sorts and has imaginary fights, yes even in the grocery store. I have grown accustom to it and let him be strange (after all, he did get his inhibitions from his mother)! Any of you reading here that have spent any time with my as a young girl or the woman I am today, knows that I love to be silly and don't really care who sees! The lady at the check out noticed that he was going to fight one of the watermelons on display and was going to say a sarcastic joke but refrained and told me the joke instead. I was trying to tell her that he was fighting an imaginary villain but she jumped in and thought I was telling her that he was autistic. No, he isn't........he just has too many of his mothers genes in his DNA, that allows him to be himself inspite of what someone might think. So I got all my items checked out, I paid and left. After we got outside I realized that I didn't pay for the Vitamin water that he was holding. So we went right back into the store to pay.
The lady who checked us out gave me a funny look and I told her that we forgot to pay. She had a few people in her line, so she told me to go to "Mike" at the quick check out. Now, Mike is a handsome, well groomed and friendly man that I would guess to be about 50. He has always been very friendly to me.....at times a little too friendly and I suspected that he was interested in me (but I wear a wedding ring and am very devoted to my husband). The only time that he wasn't friendly, was when I came through with my handsome husband. He wouldn't hardly look at me or Jeff for that matter. Hummm.....I thought it a bit odd. I told my husband about what I noticed that day and how odd I thought it was. So we joke that he is my boyfriend at Raley's. I walked right up and said that we stole the drink and we needed to come back to pay. He told me that I seemed like the type that would be honest. Actually, I was very flattered by the comment because I highly value being honest when it comes to ethics, as such. My comment back was that it was nice to know that I was perceived that way. His replay, "Your pretty and honest". I thanked him and walked away trying not to burst out in laughter. My 11 year old son heard the comment and was dumbfounded. I was flattered that someone other than my husband found me pretty and was a bit taken aback by him saying that, was it a compliment or was it inappropriate?
I left the store and just had to laugh! I'm approaching my 18th wedding anniversary, have owned up to the fact that there are wrinkles on my face and the fact that my three pregnancy and my disdain for "working out" has left me with a woman's figure not the girlish one that I miss so much.
I couldn't wait to tell Jeff what happened and let him know that he has competition (we joke like that). It was just too funny. I haven't been flirted with (besides by my wonderful husband) in I don't know how long. My son was freaked out, he thought it was very weird. All I could think of was how funny it was to me as a kid, when men flirted with my Mom, and how she would smile and have an embarrassed look on her face at the same time. It was very amusing to me when that happened!
Well with every ying there is a yang. (I don't know much about the ying and yang, so I am not making a spiritual reference, just a metaphor here.) I walked into the church later that day, to pick up my youngest son from VBS. I was told by a young boy coming down the hall that I had the same hair style as his grandma. Okay, I was feeling all good about myself and now I'm being compared to a kid's grandma. He fumbled through his words, I think he realized he made a blunder. I asked how old his grandma was and he said 40 something. Okay, I suppose if I had a kid in my teens, and that kid had a kid in their teens, I could very well be a grandma by now. So I mellowed a bit.
There are times when we unfortunately are faced with our own mortality. Then there are days that we have to realized that time has passed and has taken us along for the ride. Being flirted with by a 50 year old man and being told my hair looks like a grandma's was a bit of a punch in the gut.
I am so grateful for the life God has given me, all of the years. There is good and bad in the many years. My character is being shaped daily by so many of the experiences I have had. I continue to have my silly free spirit and yet the depth of my thoughts and feelings that can only be seen by a few. I guess that is way I write here. Self expression is sort of therapy.
Eighteen years ago I was counting down the days until my wedding. Fast forward to today and I'm counting down the days that I get to spend alone with my husband. I can't wait for our little get away vacation together this weekend. What a rock he has been in my life. I wouldn't be the same woman today if I didn't have him. He is the person that I can say anything to and he understands, or at least tries to. He can see my heart and knows my motives sometimes before I do.
So here is to 18 years of growing, fighting it out, figuring it out and loving each other through it all! Here is to being young and stupid and rushing into marriage (we met and 11 months later we said I do). No, I wasn't stupid! I knew what I wanted, I knew what I didn't want and Jeff was the answer to my prayers. He took my heart and loved it and nurtured it to health with his unconditional love. He allowed me to be me, silly and serious, and puts up with the wit that often flies off of my tongue in his direction. So after 18 years, three babies later, wrinkles and trials and triumphs......her is to you my Mr. Darcy. I love you.
