13 years..........

So as I'm famous for doing, I've fired up the grill this afternoon to cook my bride some dinner. Only today is not any dinner...today we celebrate the day we said "I do" at the First Methodist Church in Stone Mountain, GA. A little grilled chicken is not at all an adequate thank-you for all you've meant to me, but right now it'll have to do. Please just believe that I consider it nothing less than a miracle that I found someone to put up with me and all my idiosyncrasies for these past thirteen years. Idiosyncrasies doesn't quite cover it...I'm an odd character, prone to thinking way too much and letting my imagination run rampant. I'm much more interested in songs than budgets, good stories than financial planning and a day on the beach than a day at the gym. I think you knew that from the start and decided that being with a character that was one step away from being the guy you rent jet skis from in Key West was an adventure you wanted to explore.
And, as is standard operating procedure, while cooking, I've put our cd player on random and let it pick and choose from its hundred or so cd's. A strange thing happened. It landed on a bluegrass gospel cd and played "How Great Thou Art." I've told you many times that I never got to know my father as an adult, but one of my childhood memories of the man was of him driving that big '64 Chevrolet and singing. I found it odd that he would sing, given his silence around the house. And one of the songs he always sang was "How Great Thou Art." I remember, even as a small boy, thinking "wow...he's got a soul." I just saw him as the big scary person that ruled life in East Atlanta with an iron fist. So every time I hear that song I'm right back in that '64 Chevrolet.
Then, again completely at random,the very next song it landed on was Glen Miller's "Moonlight Serenade." For years I knew the day would come when every time the song was played I'd have "a moment" remembering the woman that raised me but left this life early in 2009. She loved Glen Miller and I can remember the look in her face whenever she heard those romantic melodies. I could tell the notes immediately transported her to a special place and time. I didn't comprehend it much as a child, but I do now. I've not let myself listen to that cd since she'd died because I knew it'd make me sad. But it didn't make me sad tonight. The romantic in me would like to think the choice of songs wasn't at all random. I seriously felt the presence of these two souls that gave me life and felt like they were telling me " you've done good....treat her well and tell her we love her and we're most grateful for taking such good care of you." So that's what I'm doing...thank you Rhonda Kaye. You make me believe in matches made in heaven.

Yesterday's really are over my shoulder.....

"I need to write in my blog, but I've got nothing to say." The words had no sooner left my mouth than I heard this coming from the television - "Do NOT let your yesterdays define the rest of your life." The thought was being expressed by a very tall, very fashionable and very pretty African-American woman who was singing during the end of this gospel music awards show. I was waiting on the Tech/Wake Forest basketball game but it turned out this lady had much more to offer than YET ANOTHER "L" for my Jackets'.
That really is what's holding me down. It really is what's keeping me "HERE." Yesterday. Yesterday was a lot of bad decisions. Yesterday was a lot of bad self-esteem. Yesterday was projects started and not finished. Yesterday was relationships that either should have never started or ran a bad course once they were started. But damn it all , YESTERDAY IS OVER. Not sure why I can't get that through my thick skull.
I tell my bride constantly that if I and I alone were going through current struggles I wouldn't give a darn at all. They'd be water off a duck's back. But I stood there in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and asked her dad for permission to marry her and while doing so I promised I'd take care of her. Watching her sitting and racking her brain trying to figure out how to make ends meet is not taking care of her. And every time I see that scenario playing out I think "If only I'd done things differently. If only I'd made more of myself she'd be living instead of struggling." But then I realize the greatest quandary of all - if I HAD finished this or tried that or moved here and followed that dream...I never would've met her. And, at the risk of becoming a living Hallmark moment, I really can't see the point of right now and tomorrow if she's not in it.
So I'm back to not letting yesterday define anything about today. All that matters now is the opportunity to make today and everyday from here on out better. I cannot let what's done and gone become an albatross on our lives. And, bless her heart, she knows it - she tells me this all the time. See, when we first started dating many years ago, she often scolded me for anticipating her behavior based on the behavior of former "Love Interests" (ain't that what the tabloid types call them these days? I generally call them bullets I've dodged!) Now she tells me I'm letting different aspects of my "old life" cloud every single day we have together. Things like the bad decisions and the years spent obese and unhealthy...I still live in fear of them, even if in the abstract since they're no longer around.
So my thanks to the lady on the gospel music awards the other night....you've got me to thinking...........