It's the Story...

I am getting married on July 5.

After my divorce, it took me a long time to realize that even though we'd been together for over 18 years, my ex and I had an unusual marriage. Even without the albatross of his gambling addiction, we had a disconnected relationship from the very beginning. I always preferred to think of it as autonomous, but the truth was, we were two single people in a marriage. We spent very little time together, and to the best of my recollection, the time we did manage to spend together was limited in quality. We were two solitary people living in the same house. Spread this out over 18 years, and it would warp anyone's view on marriage.

Because of my financial situation, at one point I was working one full-time job, two part-time jobs, running my website home business and taking 6 hours of classes. This was the average for about two and a half years, which made it impossible for me to even think about dating, even if I did happen to meet anyone.

From about the fourth grade until I graduated high school, I attended church camp. (Shocking, I know, as I am now an active non-theist.) I truly was a great experience, as it was one of the few places where you were surrounded by peers, but felt little or no peer pressure. At least that's the way I felt. The camp had a wonderful, amazing counselor, "George," who was a schoolteacher, and worked at the camp during the summer, and eventually became its director. She retired two years ago, and married for the first time. When she got married, it got me to thinking about all those I knew back in the day, so I started a FaceBook page for the camp's alumni.

Little did I know what FaceBook had in store for me.

Through the magic of FaceBook, I reconnected with who is now The Boyfriend. We knew each other slightly back then. He's a year younger than me, which when you're 14 and 15 is a big difference. About 15 months ago, we met up in my hometown with some other friends, and a few weeks later he asked me out. I actually was so confused by this, that I thought he thought I still lived in my hometown, but he understood that I lived four hours away.

So long story short, after a year of driving back and forth for visits and job interviews, he moved here for good last weekend. We had already set a date for July 5th, and were pretty much jumping off the bridge on the chance he'd find a job. Thanks in part to a friend of mine, he was offered a job two days before he'd planned to move here and will start three days after the wedding. The girls have adjusted beautifully to these changes and I feel as if we've jumped the major hurdles already. At least I hope so.


We're getting married at the camp, during its Family Camp session, by a priest we knew from our camp days. The Big One, The Little One and The Big One's BFF, Genius Girl, and The Boyfriend's son are all coming with us, and we're hoping to keep it as simple as possible, with the ceremony during the evening Eucharist and square dancing to follow. (We're NOT squaredancers, that happened to be the planned camp activity for the evening.) My BGF is providing the flowers and we've got a cute polka-dot cake ordered. Several friends from camp are planning on coming, as well as family. And if all goes well, Genius Girl will be singing "All You Need is Love," a la "Love Actually." (Which due to copyright laws, I could not link, but just rent the damn movie.) My plans have been somewhat half-assed, but only because I REALLY don't want a lot of muss and fuss.

I feel very lucky to have this second chance. I have many, many hang-ups about living with someone else, since I've essentially lived as a single person since I was 22, but am committed to breathing through them and accepting this gift.

I love you, soon-to-be Husband.