Travel all across this land, just me and you…

 

We are now the owners of real, adult furniture.

We have been moving from place, to place, with the mismatched pieces we’ve picked up along our nomadic journey.

It is quite refreshing to walk out of our bedroom, or enter the house, and see some semblance of the grown up life we’re trying to piece together.

This October will be Seven years together, and one year that we’ve been married. This year has somehow managed to be amazing and adventurous, while being trying and disastrous all the same.

My skin, while still itchy, is healing. I have never been more thankful for anything in my life. I can feel my energy returning. Yesterday the idea of going for a run even danced around my mind, briefly, before I thought better of it.

The fears from our old life still haunt me. That stress of living hand to mouth, week to week will never be totally gone. I still worry that something will uproot this secure life we’ve forged out of our struggle.

The year we’ve been here has changed out lives completely. Not us, not ourselves, but the picture that is the life we’re living. I miss Ottawa, the simple life we had there, two young lovebirds who had a hard time looking ahead at a stable life. We lived each day on a whim, with only our jobs being our real responsibility.

I miss walking to see Sam on his nightshift, just for a hug, when the world felt too heavy. Those moments where the world stopped, just for a short time, where we would giggle and he would wrap his arms around me, just one simple gesture that made all of my problems and stresses fade away.

This year has been busy, and slow all at once. When we’re travelling, there is no time to stop, to rest and just be. Days feel like minutes, and time passes by in the blink of an eye.

When we’re home, there’s hardly a reason to rush through anything, time slows down, and the days pass slowly, with nothing to fill them… at least for now.

I registered for my first University class in five years yesterday. It’s finally happening. With all of my good intent to start and finish school by the time I was 30, time and life threw so many obstacles at me, that until now, I haven’t been able to make good on my good intentions.

I’m going to Sudbury to meet Miss Julianne, who is expected to make her debut Friday.  Her mother thinks she’s too cozy to leave just yet, anticipating she will take her time. Sam thought she would make her escape early, and today was the say he expected the phone to ring with news of her arrival.

My Bear will be five next week. She’s not my baby anymore. She’s a grown up young lady bear now, but her puppy tendencies haven’t completely faded yet, I doubt she’ll lose them for a while. I love her, and although I thought by own I would have my own babies, she’s made the last five years very special in her own right. 

We are now on the tail end of our first year of marriage. Which means, that Sam has to finish his part of the Thank You Cards. I plan to mail out the finished cards (for my family and their friends) tomorrow. Time is ticking.

We are planning more trips. This time West, the Okanagan, the road trip anyhow, Somewhere for our anniversary, and maybe if we’re lucky everything will fall into place and for the first time, we’ll spend Christmas at home, with family, together. 

They say the first year is very tough. But, since our second year together, even amidst relationship hiccups, I feel us grow stronger as a pair each year. This year is no different, despite a new set of challenges, I think we’re doing a great job!

I sometimes look at Sam, and I wonder if he really, is truly real. In my vows I wrote, "you are ever littles girls idea of her Prince Charming", and those words aren’t just words to me. I mean them, and he makes me see themn every day.

The skin issue has been especially hard for me, and I broke down and asked him to leave, to find someone else, someone who’s healthy, that he doesn’t need to care for… someone who can care for him as much as he cares for me. I meant that too. He’s much too special to waste his life away on someone who is so much weaker.

"I’m broken Sam, and I’ll never be fixed…"  I heard myself say, while tears ran down my face. I couldn’t make them stop once they started. I couldn’t stop thinking that my ill health was ruining his life. I wish I had that ledge, overlooking the Ottawa river for this moment. But there we were in the Jeep, the lakes and trees flying past us as we headed North to Kenora. 

The words weren’t easy to say, and somehow I felt the familiarity of the SC would’ve given me the comfort to express my words the way I intended… instead it came out "You should have never married me, I’m broken and you deserve better".

Enter Prince Charming. He somehow smooths it all over, even with all of my stubbornness and my need to engage in a fight. He steps back, and he fixes it with ease. He knows how to pull me in, when I’m trying my hardest to push him away. It annoys me in that momemnt, but I’m glad he does.

Sam is my best friend, and I need to learn to see myself as he sees me… as his best friend also. I need to learn that I’m as important to him, and I view him important to me.

Still, I can’t imagine a day will go by, that I won’t feel thankful to have him, and lucky that circumstance allowed for our meeting and chance brought us together.

Sam wants to go somewhere more exciting than Ottawa for our anniversary. I love Ottawa in the fall, and this will be the first year since we moved there that I won’t see the red and gold of fallen leaves adorn the streets. It will be the first year we don’t sip latte’s at the SC and share the ups and downs of the previous year, discuss how far we’ve come and have that moment, the last of the year before the ledge gets too cold for long visits. It’s always my favourite moment of Autumn in Ottawa. That last visit of the year, to my favourite place.

It’s sad for me. Heartbreakingly sad… but life moves forward, and nothing can top last October, the wedding and the special moments of that time. This is only temporary, and one day, armed with our own family (I hope) we will return, triumphantly, and our children will sit high atop that same ledge where we made all of our biggest life decisions, shared our deepest fears and our happiest moments…drinking their Hot C’s while we share with them, the place that is most special to me, a place I’ve never lived, but I would always feel at home. 

"[We’ll} Drive until the city lights, dissolve into a country sky, just me and you… Just as free, free as we’ll ever be." <3