This morning, another lonely breakfast, only the porch rescued me from feeling sorry for myself. This is red season in the yard. The deep red hollyhocks, the red phlox, and the brilliant, orange-red daylillies are in their glory. I hate that I'll be away when DB comes back. And another week will go by before I see him. It's funny; so often we keep our own council when we are together, lost in our own thoughts. But the comforting feeling that DB is there if I want to try out a work idea, or share a concern, or just laugh with him leaves a big hole when he is away. I was thinking yesterday that it was 47 years ago last May that I first met him, and will 47 years ago in August that I knew I wanted to marry him. And I was absolutely certain that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Remember, that when I was young, divorce was out of the question. And I don't think that was bad. We went into the marriage knowing that we would have to work out our problems. We had many, many down times; but the up times were always worth it. Even when I was the most irritated and/or disgusted with DB, I knew he was and would always be a good, decent man. So if he wasn't romantic enough, or expected me to fit the "wifely" mold, I had to ask myself, "What do I really want?" We had one very rocky period when I thought I would leave him when Chard went to school. But in the meantime, I would do whatever I had to do to lessen the tension, even things I felt were unfair, or not my job. I was seeing a wise priest for counselling at that time, and that was his suggestion. "Do it for you, not for him, so that you won't have the tension you're under now." So I did (one thing DB insisted on was that any pie or cake I made could not be cut until he had the first piece. I guess he inherited that rule from his father. It supposedly was a sign of disrespect if I gave a piece to my girlfried before he got one!!! It seems so funny now. We've laughed about this a lot in later years.). The result of this campaign was that as I stopped fighting the small issues, the bigger ones took care of themselves, and when we moved to our farm, I realized that I didn't need to leave...it had all worked out. It was at the farm that DB insisted that I try college. I was scared (I just wanted to complain about the lack of a real college education...not get one!), but he would not take no for an answer and drove me to the college and waited while I enrolled in my first course. I'll have to finish this another time. I have to leave for church.
This has been a long week; DB has been in Mexico on business (but spending the weekend with Juan and family). Now, after church, I leave for Michigan and a week of training. I travel with L and M, which will be interesting. And DB doesn't come home until tonight, so I won't see him before I leave.
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