a place of becoming

It is a little after ten thirty at night. Aiva is sleeping to the sounds of Doctor Seus. And my husband is sitting on the couch beside me. My husband. How strange to say the words. We’ve been married for nearly two months and still it’s so fresh to say the words. I find myself saying them often. My Husband. It’s a novel thing. It’s  a beautifull thing. I never honestly imagined I would be married.

My Father passed away when I was 15 years old. He was diagnosed with Diabetes at a very early age and insuline dependent from the very start. As expected this played a major role on the atmosphere of my home(he was survived by a wife,three daughters and a son) on the way I viewed the world and especially on the way I viewed relationships. Watching my mother battle heavy depression for 3 years I decided I never wanted to be married. I never wanted to say good bye to someone who was my everyone.

There are many steps between my father dying at 15 and meeting Chip at 22. Graduating High School, moving to a new state,  having a child…many steps along the way. But many of them faded when I first met my husband. 4 times in my life when I felt I should have been terrified and a strange calm came over me. The night I watched my fathers heart monitor go flat. My mother cried, my grandmother screamed, the nurses sniffled.  I stood there numb. Calm. The days labor pains began. The months of sheer terror. The tears, the scribbled poems. Watching my daughters eyes open and blink for the first time. Calm. The day I  fell in love with Chip. 3 weeks into this I sit on the patio with my mother. “I think I really really love him. Like Dad’s saying it’s ok, this is the one. I really think I could spend the rest of my life with him. Where is the scared feeling?”Calm. And the day I walked down those little flat stones shaped into a path. The day I stepped up beneath the canopy of yellow flowers and held his hands. I just recited this. I couldn’t keep the tears back. Now I stand here and look up at him and I want to giggle and hop up and down. Calm. No . Elation… Surreal.

I cannot imagine not waking up and feeling him next to me.  The warmth and his indentation in the center of the bed. I cannot imagine not kissing him good bye before I walk out the door in the morning and begin the mundane. It’s always ok. It’s always all right. Because I know he’ll be coming back in the door to me before the night is through. I know he’ll be there to tickle my daughter, and smile with my daughter, and be angry at my daughter and cry with my daughter. I know he’ll be there to watch her grow and to watch me grow and to watch us grow. I cannot imagine not waking up next to him 50 years from now when it’s hard to wake up in the morning.