And so it starts...

Welcome to our journey, I hope you enjoy it as much as we are!

Life started for us at 36.  Or more specifically our merged lives started at 36.  Oddly, I have a hard time recalling what my life as a single woman was even like before I met and married my husband in a what is classically called a whirlwind romance.  

We met, fell in love.  We were honest in who we were, who we are and who we still hope to become.  What we want out of life and decided to do it together.  To take this journey of life with a partner, wth the one we were both willing to stand in front of those we love and love us and commit to do this together.  For better or worse.

Pretty much from our first date I knew I was in.  By the end of the second date I knew I was going to marry him.  That is not something I say lightly, especially because I might have commitment issues. :-) But when I say I knew I was going to marry him, I mean I knew.  I didn't want to leave his side and this was before our first kiss.

Our first date was not your standard first date.  Certainly it aided in the most honest, open conversation that lasted almost 8 hours and only ended because it seemed like the proper thing to do.  Plus, we already had plans to meet up shortly after lunch the next day.  I couldn't remember the last time I had felt excited about seeing someone again.  At the end of date two, for me it was signed, sealed and delivered.  We had once again spent almost 8 hours together and this time it included the normal eating and movies and walking around just getting to know each other.

I remember walking up to put my arm in his, our first “coupling” up move and it was the most natural thing in the world.  He looked over at me, looked down at the joined arms and back up to me with a  little smile that let me know he felt it was right too.  

The first date story is an epic one and it can only be told after you get to know us both a little better and maybe even after we get to know ourselves better.  

Until then, let’s play catch up on what has happened since those couple of dates, give a little background and insight into what clicked the two individuals into who they are and what brought them to here and now.  Then I’ll invite you to stick around if you would like as I document our journey of merging our lives together and building our path to what will hopefully be our version of happily ever after.

What is our version of happily ever after?  Growing old together.  Surviving the curve balls that life is going to throw us, hitting some home runs, striking out with grace but staying on the same team willingly and wantonly until the very end is our happily ever after. 

And that is going to take some work.  I’m pretty inexperienced in relationships where you share time, space and an odd continuum called merging lives. My husband is more experienced with a couple of long term relationships that including sharing space and schedules and potential futures.  For me, I've run the remote, folded the clothes a certain way and the dishes stacked in a particular order for a very long time by myself and it's worked and I can't understand why he doesn't see that my way of doing things is better! ;-)

With his permission, I’m starting this in hopes that I can learn something and maybe you can too.  I need to write, I need to find center and focus and letting words flow helps with that.  I spent a few months searching for what topic I could write about continuously in a blog/community format and this idea of sharing the ups and downs and merging lives together kept yielding to the front of my thoughts.  

So this is about the journey of two established adults who chose to merge their lives in hopes of lifelong joined commitment and just how hard and sometimes easy that can be, written from my perspective.  Of course he gets input and veto power, because we are a team and this is going to be about us and it wouldn't be fair if he didn't get to have say in how I present us to the world.  But it's still going to be honest. Some things really are private and even though my personal facebook page would indicate otherwise, I know this to be true. ;-)

Here’s to the journey of A and J, the home runs and strikeouts, the good and bad innings and hopefully when we earthly depart it will be considered a win in the game of life. Hope you stick around for some innings.