Three Decades

For Better or for Worse, For Richer or for Poorer, In Sickness and in Health, til Death us do Part.

Who knew I’d have all of these.  Damn you wedding vows.

Thirty years ago today, I turned in my single girl life for that of a married woman. I’ve had some good times, but mostly bad.  We’ve been more rich than poor, and more poor than rich.   I’ve been pretty sick, and for the most part, he’s been relatively healthy.  And there are times that I’d like to kill him, and I’m sure that he feels the same way about me.  I don’t carry a gun for reasons of safety—HIS!

I could be all sad and gloomy today, we aren’t even talking, but I’m gonna channel all my energy into remembering the good times.

When I first started dating Dave, the first I remember thinking was, “wow, this guy is a lot of fun….and sooooo good-looking”.  It seemed like this union was meant to be, right from the beginning.  I think there was a mutual attraction on both sides, and within 2 months I was proposing marriage to him in the McDonald’s of Olympia Shopping Center.  Yep my idea, and he was all in.  We were inseparable, him even driving from work late one evening, through a pretty nice size snow storm.  I can still see his dump truck sliding around the bend at the bottom of Bayard Street, getting ready to trek up the brick hill to my house.  There aren’t really words to describe how it feels to have somebody want to see you that badly.  Risking life and limb comes to mind, which is pretty much what he did on a regular basis.  And that felt really really good.  I used to make him steak, mashed potatoes and gravy with a salad with ranch dressing.  He never ate salads before, and he was in love, love with the salad AND me.

I would leave class at the Art Institute and shop for a card for him.  Just a random card, sometimes funny, sometimes heart-felt.  I found a very cool store in PPG place downtown.  I would sign the cards Mrs. David Gossman, even on the return address.  His mother was THRILLED!  I just wanted him to know that I thought about him all day long.

We were both excited to be pregnant with our first child.  Still practically kids ourselves, we were entering this new adventure with such enthusiasm.  He used to talk to the baby, we both named “Roxanne” after the song by The Police.  Now don’t listen to the words, that’s not what the name was about.  We loved singing the song, being kind of rock, kind of punk.  We enjoyed a lot of the same things.

Roxanne turned out to be male, and then the real fun began.  Being young and having a baby has its downfalls, that’s for sure, but it’s also just a blast.  We used to take road trips and the baby went everywhere with us.  Dave started working more and I started seeing less of him, but we still had that spark.

Four and a half years later we had a baby girl who finally got to use the “Roxanne” name, albeit in the middle.  Times were getting tougher, but she was the light of her dad’s life.  Babe-in-suit and all, she made our lives complete.  One boy, one girl and a nice little family.  We still traveled, weekends and Myrtle Beach vacations.  One road trip that stands out was a trip to Tucker County, with a visit to the countries smallest church.  Everything we did that day just seemed so in sync with each other.  One year he surprised me and the two of us flew to Florida for my birthday.  Having a birthday in December, somehow it always seemed to snow on that day making it difficult if not impossible to go anywhere to celebrate.  That was probably one of the best weekends in our marriage.  I’ll remember it forever and a day.

Dave and I still managed to make time for each other, going out on weekends and just having fun.  He’s the type of person who has quick wit and can really make you laugh hard.  No need for sit ups, he’ll make you belly laugh those stomach muscles into shape.  (Secretly wish that was a real thing)

Fast forward 11 years and surprise, we’re pregnant again.  Things seem to have gone down hill after that, pressures of making enough money to support a family and all that that entails.  Another son to add to our family.  He would turn out to be a difficult baby and toddler as well.  The spitting image of his dad, in more ways than one. One of these days I’ll write a blog about this lil dude, he’s definitely a trip for sure.

To this day my husband can still make me laugh.  We don’t have what we did, and although I try to never say never, we probably won’t ever be the same as we were.  I’ll just keep holding onto the good memories as long as I can, and just think about what we use to have.  That will get me through another day.  Oh, and this song…good times.