Anniversary and Miscellany

One whole year has passed (No, not since our last post, since our wedding). Today is our anniversary and it has been quite a year. There were so many new experiences we shared, or endured, and overlaying all that was a completely different outlook on what our new relationship actually meant. The new relationship dynamic is pretty interesting by itself. I was surprised by how different I felt after a ceremony that I perceived then as a simple change in ‘status.’ It turned out to be quite different then name changes and extra cooing. A wave of feelings washed over me, all dealing with providing for my wife, keeping her safe and healthy, doing everything I could to provide an environment that she could call home. Those feelings hit hard and were amplified immediately by the series of events that occurred immediately following our honeymoon. Those were very difficult times for me, and I know they were tumultuous for Angie.

A brief description and timeline is as follows: one week after arriving home, Angie was laid off; the next week a phone call from her mother came describing the tumor that had been found in her back. An arduous journey lay ahead for Wilma and the family, and Angie’s job status, which had felt disastrous, took a different turn as she was able to spend significant time in North Carolina assisting her mother through the hell that is chemo. As Wilma got sicker from the chemo and the cancer went into remission, Angie and I began our own battle to keep our household afloat on one salary and to survive this difficult time in our relationship. I will not harp on those problems, but suffice it to say that a newly married couple that spends only weekends together for many of their first months together can run into some major hurdles. Fortunately, Wilma began to get better, and Angie was able to come home and we were able to re-start our new married relationship. Finally, near the end of the year, Wilma’s doctors announced she was as cancer-free as they will ever admit, and Thanksgiving was a happy time with Wilma looking resplendent and proud of her shiny head, knowing that it was one helluva badge of courage, and that she had made it through another of life’s trials. With that ordeal wrapped things returned to normal, or as normal as our life gets. For almost three whole weeks.

I don’t know whether we were too stubborn or just knew everything would be okay if we hung in, but we did manage to make it through those five months. It was hard to gripe about everything down in Charleston, while Wilma was struggling with chemo, and Angie was trying to be stoic (something she is quite good at), but I managed to be an ass at times, as did my wife (but she had an excuse). Our families supported us emotionally and when Angie returned we kicked our life of again. I will not point out the proximity of the conception date of our child to things settling down, I will leave it to your imagination.

So we began another trek, fresh out of the old one, enough time to have rejuvenated our spirits and our hearts. As noted in earlier posts, we found out we were pregnant the day after Christmas. What a present! The rest of this story has been told in my other posts, and I won’t stroll through it again here—I have an agenda for this post.

I described the events that have shaped this last year, and hit on the turmoil of it, and the resulting successes, but I haven’t described what my wife is like. Describing a person is difficult in general, but Angie is so many things that a description is far too limiting. Instead I will try and describe how she makes me feel, and how she makes others feel. Many of my friends and family take special pleasure in her company because of her ability to make them smile when she smiles and make them glow when she laughs. Her bluster is only surpassed by her honest good intentions, which makes all the fussing in the world sound amusing when it’s immediately replaced by a smile and a wave. When I see her annoyed or peeved (at anyone but me) a small joke or a light comment pushes the scale into amusement and generosity. Her ability to smile at life reminds me to do the same, and has taught me more about how people should interact than I had learned on my own over 30 years. When she is annoyed at me (yes, it does happen—shocking) I learn even more about myself. I learn about what I value, what is important in my perception of a relationship. I learn to watch carefully for the sometimes too subtle signs of a couple’s interaction. I have learned to ask for what I think is important--but to make sure it is darned important, first. I have learned how it’s possible to be heartbroken, forlorn, irate and dismayed and have one sentence take it all away. I have learned how to Love differently then I have ever known, and more than I ever thought was possible. Most importantly I learned that I need to always keep learning. Our relationship is ever growing and evolving, and it is hard work, really hard at times, and with Angie it is the most rewarding endeavor I have ever experienced.

And she’s hot. Even when she’s pregnant. Smart, too.

Now what you really read for: Angie and the baby are doing fine. We will have another checkup on Wednesday before heading off on a short vacation. Lots of kicking lately, she seems to like vegetarian sushi. We have been bouncing names around, but nothing definitive yet.

Oh and our Yellow-Crowned Night Herons are roosting! Pretty neat. More pictures soon.

The 4DP may have finally succumbed to revision four of their fence, time will tell.

While I was typing this up, a sentence came up that didn’t quite fit, but resonates with me so I thought I would set it by itself here:

I think one must believe that the purpose of human existence is to grow, learn and refine continuously until you die.

Happy Anniversary Angie Stone Dawson,
Love, DBDjr.