First Comes Love

Ah love. I am going to start by telling about the people that I am going to be writing about the most, my family, and how we came to be just that. I met my husband Kevin in March of 2002. I had just started working at a bank in Hamilton, Ohio and he had just moved into an appartment down the street and came in one day to do his banking. He stalked me for about a month, filling out repeated change of address forms and coming up with other reasons to come talk to me then he finally asked me to go on a date. I agreed we went out for drinks the next night and we have been together since then. This picture is from the first Christmas we spent together.Please excuse the fact that he looks like he is being crushed my a small rhino in the picture. Eden syas as I was uploading the image..." Mom, why is your head so fluffy??" Nice. Anyhow. We dated for a few months, I got fired from the job at the back and pretty much layed around in his apartment all summer while he was at work. Then he joined the Air Force. I went back to school..that was a disaster saved for another posting, and in February of 2003, he left for basic. We were engaged already when he left and were planning to get married in the fall of 2003. (I should have graduated from college then, had I not dropped out like a loser. Like I said...another post.) When I went to se him for his graduation that was my first encounter with what the military was like. No one in my recent family served so I had no idea what to expect.

I basically cried for the entire three days.

I could not possibly imagine how I could stand to not have him around. He was going to get his assignment and I was expected to stay behind and wait??? There was no way. So he called me at work and said he was going to Germany and I said ok and we got married in July of 2003. I dropped out of college got an id card and headed to Wright Patterson Air Force Base to officially get on his orders and become a US Military Dependant. We got married in the backyard of my grandmothers house. It was just our family and very close friends. We set of fire works and bought our food at Sam Club. It was crazy hot, we set of fireworks and it was perfect. I recently watched my wedding video and the first thing that you see us do when we finish the ceremony is light up a cigarette. ( We both used to be smokers).

We have been married for seven and a half years now. Here's the thing about love. When you fall in love in the beginning, you cant imagine how you are going to make it 24 hours through your day until you get to see your love again. You dont want them to see any thing that is imperfect about you, you think about if your toenails are painted and if you shaved your legs and if you said something stupid or that at any moment that if you do the wrong thing that they are going to leave because you are so despeate for them to want you and want to be around. All this time later, I can say that there are several days I have hairy legs, and unpainted toenails and sometimes I am grateful not to see him for 24 hours. But I love him more now then I did then. And that is because I know that he wants to be here. I know that he chose me and that nothing I say or do is going to cause him to go running for the door. Because that is love and that is commitment. You see each other with the flu and making mistakes and not being the perfect thing that you thought that were when you met. This love is better, it is deeper and richer and has no expectations and conditions. I know that no matter if we have hard times that we are in it together and that there is no other person that I can possibly imagine going through all of this with other then him. And one more thing.....he is going to have to see a whole lot more as we grow and change together over the next several years. And that may look a lot worse then unpainted toenails.