You never know when that single moment will change your life

I decided to join Mama's workshop this week. I struggled over all of the prompts, though. Then, I got a great idea for the prompt about the 13 year old diary entry....I couldn't find the stinking thing. I had GOOD ideas for all of them, nothing pulled at my heart. I really only like to do posts like this when they pull at my heart or they end up being.....forced (this will be a popular term today!) So, what I ended up doing was combining two (hope this is okay Mama Kat!).

One of the prompts was to describe in 1,000 words or less (HA! I make no promises, I tell no lies!) a moment when you knew life would never be the same, and the other was the previous mentioned diary prompt. So here is the diary entry of the day that changed my whole entire life.....even if I didn't quite know it.



Thursday 9/11/03
Is it possible that I may have a date on Saturday night? (Future-Hubby) called me today and told me that he might have Alabama tickets on Sat. night and he asked me if I wanted to go if he did. We talked for about 45 minutes, but it felt kind of forced. I am not getting my hopes up, though. That always leads to absolutely nothing but heartache for me. Stop looking for love Vicki. Time to stop looking, and just have some fun.

The first words I ever spoke about my husband were "his name is Boomer????" This, of course, is not his actual name, but it was his nickname. In fact, he still has the keychain with that name on it that I got for him when he got a promotion. But this day, as I sat there in the office, I had no idea what was about to happen. As I shook his hand, I felt nothing. I later found out that he was thinking that I was intimidating! I guess when you are a five foot tall female manager, you learn to be dominating and quickly! Okay, I'm lying, I could be a six foot male, but I am who I am. As his primary trainer, we spent a lot of time together, but in my dating ways I was still choosing between two others. I invited him to go the the bar one night as an afterthought, a buddy type of thing. I was preoccupied, he thought I was dating the DJ (who was not only my employee but a good friend, never anything else). So this was the exact formula that I spoke of. Neither of us was looking. Neither of us put our hearts into it. We were drinking buddies.

But one night, as I sat there in my cute little size 5 jeans and my red and revealing tank top, I watched him drinking his red bull and vodka, and before I thought twice, I leaned forward and kissed him. He was stunned that I would do this in front of the person he thought was my boyfriend, but he realized his mistake quickly. From that night forward, we have never been anything but us. We never once broke up. We have had little fights, big fights, passion and anger, friendship and love. But through each and every minute, we have been best friends. And that is our song. My Best Friend. We hold on to our traditions, we hold on to our love, and we hold on to our promises. And we try to always remember.....never stop trying.

The one moment of our wedding that I will never forget may surprise you. It wasn't the putting on of the dress, it wasn't the vows or the cutting of the cake, it wasn't the first dance, or the first kiss. It was the moment I hung up the phone from asking where our tardy DJ was. I put the phone down, and looked around the bustle of the Bride's room. I watched my sister put last minute touches on her lipstick. I watched my mom lean out the door to motion to my dad. I watched my niece looking around like everyone was crazy. And all I could think, one emotion, one sentence, one overwhelming feeling.....was that I wanted to be with (hubby). I didn't care married or not. I didn't care about anything. I wasn't stressed. I was very excited. But the wedding was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to be with him, just wanted to feel his hand protecting mine. His heart touching mine in only a way he could. And this....this was the moment that changed my life. Because this was the moment I knew. I knew this was perfect, this was right. We were meant to be with one another. We were meant to change our lives together. We were truly meant to start this family that we have now. And three years later, as I lay on an operating table waiting for my daughter to be born, I thought the same thing again.....I only want to be with my husband. He would be the only person to calm my fears.

I never knew, as this nervous man dropped my hand like it caught on fire at the Alabama concert the second the man proposed to his girlfriend on the stage, that this would be the man to sing to me during our first dance. This would be the man to wipe away my tears as my biological father hurt me over and over again. This would be the man that would hug me tightly while a positive pregnancy test got smooshed between us, and the one that didn't notice the test that lay on the table for five minutes the second time. That he would be the one to brush my hair from my eyes as I labored with our first, or the one that kissed my forehead as I fretted over the second c-section. I never even thought that this would be the man that would be the second person to take place in a hidden place in my heart, a hidden place that my biological father shut, and only my stepdad and husband could open.  At this moment, I never knew that this would be the person who would support me, love me while he hated me, listen to me, and go to sleep with me every night. I stopped looking, and I failed to see. And in that blindness I found what I was looking for.

I thought it might be fitting to end this with the first diary entry that I wrote after we were married, on our two month anniversary.

Well, here I am sitting next to my husband. I am now officially Vicki ___. We got married on his birthday. It was absolutely beautiful! Married life is wonderful. There is always someone to hold, always someone to talk to, someone to shoulder troubles with. Babies are the next step, but not for awhile still. The wedding was everything I had ever dreamed it would be. I finally found my night in shining armor.