Changing the Words but Not the Vibe.

 

When the day finally started to come to a close & I was able to climb into my bed, wiggle down under the blankets and get set for a most need night of slumber - I turned on my Alexa and waited for my cat, Princess to do her nightly ritual of jumping on my back, walking off my back, prancing across my head, knocking things off my bedside stand before she would at last settle down - tucked under and around my arm before dosing off.

     I was tired. Real tired. I shut my eyes listening to the music that played barely in the background of my pitch dark room, only being lit by the glow of a plug in that charged my phone. As I tried to turn my thoughts of the day off - resting my mind, a song came on that was all to familiar to me. To my life's happenings for the past 25 (odd) years. It was a song that my now husband sang to me by camera recording while I was at work one night. He recruited one of our daughters to record him while he danced around the kitchen belting out way to many words - at least not pulling down the curtain as he spun in circles flailing his arms in the air like a bird getting ready to take off - midflight.

My husband, our years before this moment seemed to crash into me.

     I thought of all the good and the not so good times that we have gone through or more that I have had to put up with - being together with him.
     Rusty has always been my chaos and my calm rolled into an alright type of marriage that has lasted what seems like a life time already.

When the two of us first met - he was just the cutest thing in his way to tight torn, faded jeans and his little Ozzy glasses. I think that for the both of us it might have been a "love at first sight" kind of thing? He stopped by the place I was staying at - told me he would be back later and wanted to see me. A few hours after that - he was back and we have been together ever since that "faithful" night. I guess I shouldn't really say, well, I guess I can say that we have been together but can't say together we have been. See, he was only on a short vacation to visit here in Washington. Maybe it was about 2 weeks and then he had to return "home" which at this time for him was San Francisco. A whole world away or so it felt like it was. When he said his goodbyes - my heart went with him just knowing I wouldn't see him again. What we had shared was something like you see in movies. If you are a bird then I am a bird type of thing. 

    Those 2 weeks we had together were glorious. They were filled with happiness, laughter, adventures and love. As his taillights grew dim the farther away he drove, I wasn't going to cry - I told myself that I wouldn't. I mean hell, we had two amazing weeks together and I was feeling a lot like Sandy after her and Danny were fated to become one.

That feeling lasted two days, maybe one and I missed him so much. I wrote him a letter and included *very nonchalantly a few or okay maybe like a lot of photographs of "my" kids letting him know how much they missed him. Seem like within hours I heard back from him. I remember the card - it had Snoopy on the front while the inside read have your people call my people. Wow! Yep! This was the one I was going to spend forever with - he must have felt the same because it didn't take long until he was on a plane back here, to me. That in itself was some chaos - our precious (dog) Mesha aka Piggy cost more to buy a plane ticket for then Rusty did. They lost Piggy in "baggage." We, me and the kids waited "forever" for the plane to land. At last it did. He sang Momma, I'm Coming Home by Ozzy all the way back to the place I was staying - to me at the top of his lungs - in Seattle - on the street. So romantic. It is now one of my favorite tunes to ever listen to.

     After more chaos of jealously went down, I was no longer living where I had been and him and I ended up in a Hotel. There we stayed for a while with the 4 girls and Piggy. Now Piggy was no small dog and since dogs couldn't stay where we were we had to sneak her inside and out in a duffle bag each time we came and went.

We soon ended up moving to Monroe. Yup - you guessed it, back to Marge's.
Once cursed. Always cursed. 

     It didn't take to long & we were going to be welcoming another nut to the tree. I was pregnant. I already had 4 girls and I sure didn't care if this was another girl or my 1st boy - I just wanted the baby to be healthy. Somewhere in all this chaos again - tables turned, we ended up packing the kids, the dog, my pregnant self and though I don't know who thought it would be a good idea, I am sure it was Rusty, we jammed our possessions into "The Party Van" and headed off to start a new life in California. Less then a week later we were back with my Grandmother in Monroe.

I am not sure if this should be listed under chaos or calm but I had my son.
The Mighty One! Rusty was a wreck. It seemed as though he was riding a merry-go-round and each time he went to drag his foot to slow it down it would pick up speed. He refused to hold Mighty at first - thinking he would drop him. I forced him and well, that was my mistake there. I didn't get to have anymore time with my son while we stayed in that four wall, everything shinny and beeping, white place that smelled of cleaner. Rusty held him, fed him and slept with him on his chest in the rocking chair. Once we came home though it was a different story. 
     My son seemed to grow up way to fast, his beautiful bouncing blonde curls ended up being cut. He still toted his blanket *Cuddly Wuddly around but there was no more overalls just sweats and some of the Teletubbies incased in a tiny hand.

Seasons came and went. We had our moments. Oh! How we had our moments. 

My Grandmother was cursed with F*CK CANCER and ended up passing away. 

     I knew when I lost her that, that was something I wasn't going to be able to bare. My whole world was going black - hell was flashing in front of my eyes. How was I going to live without her? I wasn't and I was destined to realize that the second I had to say goodbye.
     Rusty was my calm in those moments. He not only held me but held me up. I know in my heart that he was the only reason I lasted through all of the darkness from that time.

Rusty and I were together about 6 years before we got married. 

     We moved a lot. Fought a lot. Made up a lot. You could say that our theme song should be a mix of: Looks Like We Made it by Shania Twain and Crazy Train by Ozzy.

I can't say that life has always been perfect with him. There were more then a few times we were going our separate ways - thanks Matchbox for holding it together for us.

      We have faced court dates, jail times, our kids having kids - becoming grandparents in our own rights, losing people and animals we have loved - friends that never were. We have dealt with being the Tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny and staying up all night being Santa's Elves putting together bikes. We have argued about anything and everything you could think of - from pictures being crooked on the walls to feeding the dogs my brand new Scarecrow broom. We have done hospital runs, broken down cars - shared a lot of praying and a lot of laughter and even more tears.

In this life, my Grandfather used to tell me that there were only 2 things you could be sure of: 1 was taxes and the other was death. But I think there are 3 things you can be sure of - adding love as that last number. 

     I will be the first to admit that my husband isn't perfect - NOT in any way: he pretends to know things when he really doesn't, he lets gray creep into his hair and I have to yell at him for a week solid before he will do something about it, he likes to eat his steak right off the BBQ soon as he puts it on, he has been banned from working on any of my cars, he loves wrestling - just the wrong people involved in it and he also always makes sure I have my Starbucks, makes me the best tasting S'mores and hauls big ass recliners outside for me to sit in because he knows I don't do any type of "roughing it," he humors me when I get excited about the snow falling and listens to me complain about the sun shining so yeah, even tough he isn't perfect - you know what I know? He is mine and to me that is what matters the most.

I tell my girls, whenever I watch that old video with Rusty singing to me, the one where I fall in love with him all over again every time I see it - that I am not embarrassed of his clown like moves, and that I only hope someday they will too find a guy who does silly, crazy things like that for them because if that isn't love then I sure don't know what is - even if all the words he belts out aren't the words that belong in the song - cherish it because it isn't something that everyone is lucky enough to have.

                                                                  Kazz 💋