Merry Christmas everybody. Here's hoping you are spending your holiday in a way that gives you Joy.
Oh and since I wont be posting today or tomorrow after this one, happy Chaunakkah (or whichever variant spelling you would prefer to use - just pretend you're reading this after sunset).
So I've been waiting on this for a while, and if everything went well I wanted to announce this today.
I'm Engaged.
Ayup, I'm going to get married again, to a woman I love very much. To a woman who is as much my best friend as Jim is, and who I was friends with before I ever had a romantic relationship with.
To a woman who can actually be my equal in many things, my superior in some, and my partner in everything.
It's funny, we had the "you're not gonna like this thing about me" discussion - you know the one where you tell people the things about you that you think they are going to have a problem with, like "I ride motorcycles, fly airplanes, shoot guns, play role playing and computer games, and hate communicsts socialists, collectivists and authoritarians of any stripe"
You know the discussion where you're supposed to scare them off...
Her response?
"Great, can I come too?"
Her version went kind of like "Well I want to have more kids, and live in a house in the middle of nowhere with some horses, atv's a big garden, a workshop etc.. and it's got to be near woods and mountains and water, and I want to work, but I think I want to stay at home and raise kids more... maybe I'll work at home and raise the kids".
My response?
"Where can I sign up for that?"
We were both with the wrong people for as long as we've known each other (good people, jsut not the right people); we both said for the entire time "Nah, we're not interested in each other. We're just not each others type. We're just good friends". We both loved the people we were with, but hadn't been in love with them for a long time, and new they were the wrong people; we jsut didn't want to let go.
We both parted ways with our previous relationships at the same time. Though that wasn't intentional; in no way did we break up to be with each other; one breakup was clearly a catalyst for the other.
So we were both out of our previous relationship, and we realized that was a good thing. Then, rather suddenly and forcefully (think "smacked upside the head by Moljinir") we both realized, we were really in love with each other, and maybe had been for as long as we'd been physically hanging out together (we were friends on the net for a while before that) and just hadn't realized it.
So for everyone who thinks this is fast, it kinda is, but it's not as fast as it looks. Think of us as having been together since September, and it's almost new years.
Her name is Melody, ahe has two kids, Rosemary and Shaila (with appropriately cute diminutive nicknames); and we've been "bonding" together as a family like unit the last few days. We just had our first christmas together, and it was great... though Rosie is still having some anxiety about me going away or mommy going away with me; and a little jealousy; it was clear last night that she, and her sister both love me.
And lord help me, I love them right back.
Yeah I'm ignoring John Rosses advice about single moms with kids, but he has a caveat; it's okay so long as they are young, and the marriage dissolved because it was a crappy marriage that shouldn't have happened in the first place, AND she wasnt screwed up too badly by it, AND she isn't just out looking for a meal ticket.
There aren't a lot of single moms like that, and I'm damn lucky to have one of them.
I don't mind the concept of a ready made family; actually I welcome it. We both want more kids, and Rosie is torn between wanting more brothers and sisters, and not wanting to share mommy any more (Shai is too young to understand).
The kids already love my place, and love being around me. My lease is up in April, and we're going to look for a rental house while we build some money for a down payment, and wait for the minibubble around phoenix to slide down a bit (there wont be a major crash here, theres just too many people who want to live here, but the speculators and investors will get pushed out).
We haven't set a date, we're expecting some time around late spring or early fall next year (because of the weather no-one wants a summer wedding here).
Anyway this is why I've been a lot less available, and a lot more closemouthed about my personal life the last couple months. I'm getting ready to have a real family, and it's got me pretty busy.
That said, I'm going to get back to my usual feverish pace of forum posting and the like fairly soon.
Oh and she loves to shoot. We bought her her first gun for her birthday last month (yeah I reported on that, but didnt mention that she was my girlfriend at the time. Oh and I finally have the pictures of that, but my scanner isn't working. Soon as I fix it, they're going up). We'll be getting her a CCW soon, and maybe get her into IDPA.
I gave her a second gun as an early christmas present BTW. A USP compact .45 just like mine, but without nights or the work that I have done on mine. She actually REALLY LIKES the .45; better than the 9mm, and she LOVES her SP101 (though we ALL prefer it with .38spl loads).
So, from all of ours, to all of yours, Merry Christmas
