A New Start

To feel the keys beneath my fingers again is such a comforting feeling. I have missed my writing greatly, and yet I love the distraction that has kept me from it for over a year now. Six years ago I started my first blog. Though so much of my life has been recorded there, it somehow didn't seem the same to return to it after all these months. With a fresh start, it seemed the best step to take in journaling this new chapter of life would be to start a new blog- RetroBelle Wife.

If we have never met, then please let me introduce myself. I have been born and raised in the south. I love history, crafts, road trips, and my family. I love all things vintage (especially from the 1930s-1950s). I will never turn away a glass of tea, a cold coke, or a hot cup of coffee. Oh, and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to write! Only recently I have found time to begin sorting through the events and emotions of the last several months to begin posting about life again. My greatest distraction from my writing has been, and undoubtedly will always be, my husband. My incredibly wonderful, caring, loving husband, I should say!


Visiting Natchez, MS

My husband and I met on Match.com. After a year with no success, I had actually given up hope of ever finding my future husband on the site. Even so, on January 4th, 2013, I hit send on what would become the most important email I have ever sent. He responded the very next day. We wrote to one another every day after that. He would write in the late afternoons and I in the very late evenings. During a vacation with my family at the end of the month, I agreed to meet him later in the week. We were both nervous that first night we met and hardly ate anything. Funnily enough, it wasn't until a month or so later that either of us knew that the other had actually been nervous. Our conversation never ended during that first date and it hasn't stopped since. When we didn't see one another, we wrote to each other. I'll admit, I was nervous for a short time that he wasn't the one. I had for so long been cautious and strong- cold in a way. He was polite and kind and attentive. He remembered everything I said and listened to everything I had to say. It worried me that if he didn't leave on his own accord, that I would hurt him with my coolness in the end. I had a lot of thinking to do. In the end, I realized that I would rather risk my heart with a good man than hurt it continuously by keeping it all to myself. Every prayer I ever prayed concerning my husband and finding him was answered. God knows I am a literal person and therefore He made certain that I would not miss His signs.

 

We first said "I love you" on March 16th, 2013- the same day that he gave me a bouquet of handmade paper roses. That said, we have both admitted that we realized we loved each other before we actually got up the nerve to tell one another.

 

He "officially" proposed on May 30th, in my one day old car in the parking lot of the branch I was working in at the time. I know I am supposed to say that it was the most elaborate, detailed event of all time, but truth is, it wasn't. From stories I have heard from others, I am starting to think that men only propose on the nights when you are in the worst mood possible. His nerves had caused him to be short with me all throughout our date that night. By the time we got back to the parking lot, the last thing I wanted to do was show him my new car. Still, I let him sit in the passenger seat and look around. I was just about to kick him out and tell him how frustrated I was with him when he began to speak. I can say that although the rest of the date had been miserable, when I heard not only the words, but the sincerity in his voice as he told me that he wanted to marry me I could not have been happier. I had known early on that I had wanted to be his wife. To hear him say that he had chosen me, that he hoped that I would be his wife, was the most wonderful proposal he could have offered to me.

We were married on October 19th, 2013, on my parents' land under the arch my daddy had built for us. While I knew I loved him that day, I have come to realize everyday since then how much I truly love my husband. I have spent the last four and a half months overwhelmed by my inability to fully describe this love that I have come to know. At times I have thought of my mother (who taught me so much more than most mothers teach their daughters these days) and wanted to ask her how she could have left out these feelings I know now in her stories she told me. Then I realize that just as I can never express all that I have come to know in this love for my husband, she could not have done it either- not in words or in writing. If I think about it, it was something I saw in her eyes. It was something, no matter where my daddy was, that would fill her eyes at the simple mention of him. I know I saw it. I know I paused and considered it from time to time, but in my ignorance I simply thought it was the look my mother and daddy had when they thought of one another. Now I know.

To someone who has always known love, it is strange to suddenly realize what it is to love someone you once considered a stranger. As I said before, I knew that I loved him before we were married. I simply did not realize how much I did; how much I could.

 

Since October 19th, life has changed completely. I am now the wife of the computer tech that found my heart. We live a fairly quiet life, though much busier than the ones we lived before we were married. We have had to learn to do a lot of things- how to deal with family drama, how to handle rough days at work, how to plan for our future, and in what order to plan. It was one thing to know how to get through a rough day alone or to know how to handle our responsibilities. It is quite another thing to learn how to help your husband through a rough work day or how to make decisions that affect the other person. It is not always easy, but the best part is that I have someone else to learn with and that person is my husband.