Nostalgia

So I spent two weeks in Texas for the holidays, and we had a great time.  My mom and I set out to put some photo albums together.  We wanted to do one for my brother, my sister, and me. We popped a bottle of bubbly and headed upstairs to start the fun!  

And this is why we still have no albums.....we can't get through the organization part.  I just sit and laugh and laugh at our hair, our clothes, my dad's tight pants and polyester coaching shorts.....all of my cute or sometime loser boyfriends.  We didn't even make a dent. 

Speaking of old boyfriends;  I had more pictures of one in particular.  The one that I was going to marry, but decided not to almost a month before.  He was so cute.  We had so many great pictures, and so many great memories.  After looking at all of those pictures I undoubtedly had a dream about him.....I don't remember now what it was, but it was just one of those weird unexplainable...it was me, but it wasn't, and we were in my house, but it wasn't my house kind of dreams.  

I didn't think much of it as I put on my cute designer sweatpants, long sleeve T, Uggs, and a leopard scarf to wear to the dreaded small town post office!  I hate the damn post office, and especially the stupid one in my mom's small Texas town.  Everybody knows each other and talks to the damn workers even though the line is about 14 people deep.  There are 5 windows at the post office, but there will only be two workers on a good day.  And the pick up window....well that sucks too.  It is only open from 8am-8:30am.....hey thanks......don't overdo it or anything!  

I figured it didn't really matter who I saw at the post office that early in the morning, and I would definitely keep the Wayfarers on the entire time.  I went to Starbucks before hand to get a hot chocolate.  Starbucks is totally off limits right now, but I figured we could make an exception since I was having to embark on such a horrible errand.  So, I walk in, Starbucks in hand, and surprisingly there are only 4 people in front of me at the pick up window...one of those people is about 120 years old, so she might have died in line making me only have to wait behind 3 people.  Well, she survived, but was not the swiftest lass, and I actually got my packages within about 30 minutes......it was a damn Christmas Miracle.

The parking lot dumps you out on a different street than you come in, so I ended up in a neighborhood, and my Dad got my mom the GPS in her Range Rover, but she never learned how to use it, so I was shit out of luck there.  I thought I was starting to recognize things....I turned a few times, and looked as though I was headed for the main drag when all of a sudden, I was face to face with the First United Methodist Church.  Yes, the very church that I was to be married in!  The very church where I willingly went with said fiance to meet the preacher and talk about our courtship.  The very church where I bawled my eyes out when the preacher, minister, Reverend.....whatever you call him, asked me to tell him everything that I knew about said fiance from birth to now.  I knew it all.....from his first grade teacher, to how he didn't get to walk at graduation because he had too many absences from skipping school to water ski with his friends......I was talking and crying.  Not just crying, but border line sobbing. The ugly cry with the uh uh uh in between every so often.  He was looking at me like a was a crazy person, and I was.  The poor minister man didn't know what to think either.  He was just looking at me and handing me kleenex after kleenex.  I didn't know what to do, so I just kept talking and crying....it was horrifying!  I'm not a cryer!  I didn't even cry when I saw Beaches......when we were little my brother cried when we saw the Fox and the Hound.....did I cry....no!  I'm not a cryer, so the sheer thought of this reality was mind boggling! 

The preacher man didn't even let us get to him describing me.  I think everyone was just a little too uncomfortable by that point.  He said that we would stop for now and pick up later......holy shit!  What had just happened?  It was the weirdest thing.  After the exorcism of sorts we were to meet my parents and God Parents at a great old hotel for brunch and champagne.  We got in the car, and he asked me if I was okay.....I told him I was and that I didn't know what had come over me.  We brushed it off as wedding weirdness and headed to brunch where my mom took one look at me and knew that I had been crying.  I think that is why I don't cry....I look like sloth when I cry.  I get all red swollen and blotchy......it's not good.....there is really no part of it that's good.  The funny thing is....I think crying was a bad look for me back in the Fox and the Hound days....hm.  

Anywho, I now know why I was bawling!  I didn't want to marry him, and hadn't figured that out yet.  I was just going through the motions with a man that I did love, but didn't love enough for the long haul.  I didn't know that then, and I am so happy that I figured that out....be it one month before the wedding, but thank God!!  

I walked into the house after my trip down memory lane to my now husband turning my now baby upside down and swinging the little giggling 7 month old by his feet around and around until he barfed up prunes all over the floor.  Nice!  I love him, and I love my life.  It's funny how it almost didn't happen.  I think the holidays is always a time when you look back on things, and think "what if".  Well, it wouldn't have been horrible, but I definitely wouldn't have been like this, and I love this!  

Tootles!