Life Is A Little Messy...Or A LOT Messy

I can remember the very first time I made the comment to my mama that life is messy.  She gave me this inquisitive look, and then very sweetly asked, "Do you really think so?"

Yes.

Yes, I do.  I very much so do.  I feel like life is on this continuum where it can go from just a little messy to a whole LOT of messy, and sometimes it can switch from one end of the continuum to the other in zero to sixty.

Now, granted...  At the time that my mama and I first had this conversation, I was a single woman...living at home with my parents...working full-time...in grad school...and "raising" a giant Great Pyrenees mix fur ball that I lovingly named "Sophi."  I was also trying (although not too hard) to have some kind of a social life.  So, I had a little bit of messy (maybe borderline crazy) going on, but probably not to the extent that I feel I have going on now.  And...all of my messy is probably self-inflicted.  Ha!

Just a little under 2 months shy of 2 years ago, I met my husband for the very first time.  We had met online through Match.com, emailed back and forth for maybe 2-3 days, exchanged phone numbers, and agreed to meet up at Timberlake Playhouse.  Our first date is proof enough that life is messy...

I got off work at 5, rushed home, planning how much time I had for a shower, to get dressed, etc before I had to leave the house to make it to Timberlake on time.  Well, I pulled into my driveway and those plans were shot down quicker than a clay pigeon.  I ended up cooking dinner for my brother, his wife, and his sister-in-law, nixing the shower, throwing on a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt and running out the door, speed-demoning my way to Mt. Carroll.  We met up, sat through an...interesting...play, and then decided we would go get ice cream.  However, we ended up in DIFFERENT towns!  I knew he was a keeper when he didn't give up then and there and actually found me in the town I had mistakenly plunked myself in.  We rushed into Hardee's 5 minutes before closing, ordered our ice cream, and walked the town until we found a cute little bench to sit down at (which I am sad to say is no longer there).  We ended up talking until about 2 in the morning, when I suddenly realized what time it was and that I needed to get home.  (Can you believe he asked me out on a second date yet that night!!!  No shower.  Bad at directions.  Awkward.  My, oh my... I do love that man!!)  

To make a story short, I knew he was my forever love that night (as crazy as it may sound).  We dated for about 4 months, were engaged for 2 weeks, and then got married on a Tuesday afternoon at 1 p.m. at the courthouse.

When we first got married, we were living in a one bedroom apartment with a chain smoker next to us and drug dealers below us.  The apartment had black mold growing in almost every room, only half of the heaters worked, the stove...maybe 1 or 2 of the burners worked.  So, needless to say, we were ready to get out of that slum.  About 3 or 4 months into marriage, we bought a house.  But it wasn't just any house.  It was the kind that you completely gut and build back up.  And we lived in it!!  (We're still living in it, actually.)  And then we bought a puppy.  I finished school.  I started a new career.  Justin went back to school...etc.  Living amongst the chaos at its finest, I tell you.  

This is our every day.  It's messy.  Sometimes it's more messy than others, but it's messy nevertheless.  And it's ours.  All ours.  And you know what?  There's no one I'd rather do this messy life with than my husband.  I'm so grateful that he puts up with my messes and that he made the decision that he wanted his mess and my mess to be ours.

Love you, baby!!