Sorry I’m late. Last night got a little crazy and I still haven’t set up things on my phone. But without further ado, here is Day 7. And wow what a wonderful day it was. I guess anyone following this day to day probably thinks after my last post things might have been strained at best between my wife and I. For whatever reason, we have always been drawn close when things are in the most danger of falling completely apart for good. Its a wall I hope we don’t have to hit in the future. Pretty much the minute I posted that and walked out of my lab to go home, things started to happen. She texted me to tell me she was coming over to talk after work, that she didn’t want to lose me. At that point, I had nothing to lose by hearing her out so I said why not. Things just finally kind of melted down the moment she walked into the door. She smiled. I smiled. “What am I going to do with you?”, I asked as I drew her in for a hug. There were some final barriers we had to cross together, and to show one another we were maturing past the blow ups we had become accustomed to. The old Chris? Yeah the house would have been a wreck and he would have been running around spitting nails. I can talk about things now. I can listen now. Anger doesn’t dictate my actions past an unhealthy point of no return. It was a toxic way to live, and I am never going back to that.
So carrying over into the next day were these positive vibes of progress. I had always planned on getting her these pretty diamond earrings that she liked, I just kept putting it off until the time seemed right. Well it was feeling like this was a different day. Blind of faith, just do it. I ended up getting the pair bigger than the ones I had intended to get her. As I was driving out of the mall parking lot, she called me, and said something that made me proud to be her husband. I won’t get into the details, but it shows how far we have both come to get to a point where she can trust me with anything and everything, and opening up to me really let me know that I was doing the right thing. These earrings are just “things” but every once in a while its good to do something nice to put a smile on her face. And when its the most beautiful smile in the world, who wouldn’t want more of those?
Ok so here are the guidelines for doing the most romantic thing of all time, which is what I did. We met at the dog park to let Maple play, and when we walked towards the coffee shop I stopped her in front of a window and asked her to tell me what she saw in the reflection. “Us”, she told me. I asked her to close her eyes and put my phone on the table in front of her and pushed play on a video I always keep of us saying “I do” and walking down the aisle at our wedding. “Even when things go out of sight, just know that I love you”, I whispered into her ear. I put my arms around her, opened the box with the earrings, and told her to open her eyes. The look of absolute shock, then elation, was worth everything I had gone through. Sometimes we all just need to be swept off of our feet.
We ended up getting coffee and talking some more about what was going on, and I finally got some closure. We could go forward. Finally. That night was the perfect ending for our day as we spent it with some good friends that we have had since we met, it really restored some normalcy I felt like. And the coolest thing about all of it was that we fell back into each other like we had never been apart. Things wen’t well into the night and early morning, which I guess means I will have to talk about it on my next day. Adios.
I am beginning to think early morning phone calls are an omen of good times. I was in the shower when the phone rang. It was her. Things had cooled down since yesterday and we made sure the focus of things (after some apologies of course) were turned to our daughter. A few pancakes and a Dogasaurus walk later, we were on our way to see her. She of course looked dropped dead gorgeous, and I begrudgingly left Cal with her and set off for work. Which is a challenge in itself. Just concentrating on reading my emails is a hurculean task these days I am so distracted. I was hoping that I could eventually dive into my work and just take my mind off of this emotional hurricane that has taken over my life, but to be honest, that hasn’t happened. So it was back to the grind to force myself to stay gainfully employed despite everything going on. Luckily, today had a good surprise in store for me. Early morning phone calls folks, I’m telling you. She took me out to lunch, which was awesome. Just to top it all off, she had her nails done with baby blue polish…just..the..way..I…love it. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Let me tell you something, there is one surefire way to get sparks shooting out of my ears, lasers shooting out of my eyes, and my tongue rolling out of my mouth onto the ground. Baby blue. Anything. First week we dated she bought herself and baby blue bikini that drives me crazy. So seeing her little hand with those nails pretty much blew my face off. I’m trying to stay grounded in reality so there are other things I am trying to take from today that are of substance and value. She took really good care of our daughter and spent a few hours with her at the doctors, and I could tell Cal was really enjoying her time together when I saw them. It was a good day. A good day to get better.
I went to volunteer orientation at the Panhandle Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) today. My wife volunteers here and used to go quite often. She found a rescue dog she fell in love with, who of course is our lovable little dog Maple. She always talked about how good it made her feel coming up there and helping the animals and making sure they were getting enough love and attention. She is an animal lover and sometimes she cried because seeing some of the animals suffering made her absolutely devastated. I used to give her grief for going so often when she could have been working and making money. I didn’t care about all of the great work she was doing and couldn’t appreciate her reasoning for going. Sounds like a real jerk doesn’t it? I look back at that and wow do I feel revolted at the thought of how I used to be. Not only towards my beautiful kind wife, but just in general. Doing things for other people or other living things is one of the most rewarding things we can do. And yes of course we all need a paycheck to accomplish some of the things we are trying to do, but when that becomes our driving motivation for everything then wow have we lost sight of things. There were several couples there volunteering together and it made me kind of depressed honestly. That should have been us. Samm was pretty surprised when I told her I was doing this yesterday. She asked if I was doing it for her, or for myself. I guess its the latter, but I chose to do this at PAWS because yes I know how much this place has meant to her and of course I want her to see my changes applied to something she holds dear. It certainly wont stop there though. The days half done but when you FINALLY get to wake up next to your wife, child, and two dogs, then you are going to accomplish something worthwhile.
