Three Years Ago Today...

Three years ago today, life as I knew it changed forever. Three years ago today, I could never have imagined that I would know the things I do now. Three years ago today, I never even dreamed that my life would be where it is now. Three years ago today, was one of the best days of my life.

Three years ago today I woke up in Las Vegas after only sleeping for about an hour. You know that feeling where you are anxious about the next day's events and you try so hard to will yourself to sleep eventhough you are running on fumes but your eyes won't close, your mind won't quit thinking, and that tingly feeling in your stomach won't go away? That was me. It probably didn't help that my best girlfriends and I stayed out late partying on the Strip. Unable to sleep anymore I walked down to the Mc Donalds in the MGM and got hashbrowns and sausage biscuits for my friends that were "over served".

Six months before this day, being here was the last place on Earth I thought I would be. After spending a couple of years in a couple difficult relationships that smothered the person I thought I was, left me wanting as far away from another relationship as I could get. It was my time to hit the reset button and get back to myself. My time to get back to the person that my friends knew me as, not this mind boggled, down on life, miserable and not to mention 20 pound heavier person that I had reluctantly become accustomed to. This was MY time. Period. And boy did I take advantage. I was back to enjoying life, living the single life with this new freedom. Freedom looked good on me and I was proud to wear it around everywhere. Life had a purpose again. A purpose other than the same old routine, same old arguments, same old jealousy, same old wondering why I had let it go this far.

When your life becomes your's again, it's like an awakening. Like you lived the last couple years inside a tunnel unaware of the world changing around you and finally you reach the end and actually feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. There are colors again. There is sound again. There is breath back in your lungs and you are no longer a lifeless shell just living. A sense of urgency usually follows you too after this awakening. The sense that you have so much catching up to do with life. You have to catch up on all the things that you missed out on while trying to make someone else happy to no avail. There are people to see, drinks to drink, concerts to soak in, traveling to be done.

In the midst of this awakening, I kept getting a tug on the brain from this strapping young cowboy that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with. Can't you see, I'm in the middle of an awakening here? I was having the time of my life and couldn't be bothered with attempts to win over my heart or even my brain for that matter. To be honest, I enjoyed the attempts and I enjoyed saying no even more. That was a very empowering feeling after finding myself again.

Soon after, he quite trying. Hey wait! Come back!

After a chance meeting at a roping we were both working, the local honky tonk seemed like the best option to hang out afterwards. That's when the cowboy name Clint finally piqued my interest. We two-stepped and sang along to every song that came through the speakers. Those are two of my favorite things in this world: singing and dancing. I can dance with the best of them but I can't carry a tune in a bucket but I sure did like trying. Maybe that's why I listen to music so loud, so it drowns out my own voice and I can pretend the singer's voice is mine. It was so nice to dance with someone that knew how to dance. I didn't have to lead and most importantly, I didn't have to teach him how to dance like I had done so many times before. That is probably one of the most awkward and embarassing things to do: teaching someone how to dance in front of God and everybody on a dance floor in a honky tonk, especially being a girl teaching the guy. Growing up traveling around the states with my Dad rodeoing, there are two things I knew how to do: ride a horse and two-step. I'm pretty sure those two things are in the "Cowboy Code of Conduct" if there is one. Thank goodness I found someone that knew that code. It was familiar and easy to me.

Spending time with Clint in the days following that fateful night, I quickly learned that he had gone through situations recently that had him in the same emotional boat with me. Rowing his oars as fast as he could going away to anything but where he had been. We shared the need to be accepted for the person that we each were without pasting a smile on the outside but dying a slow and painful death on the inside. We shared the same zest for life, for laughter, for fun, for music, and ultimately the same zest for love. We filled each others cracks in our hearts.

We quickly made the decision that it didn't matter where we were in life, where we were going or even where we had been but that together was where we needed to be... forever.

For different reasons we got mixed responses from our decision to get married so fast. Did we care? No. We took all the warnings, gossip and even the well wishes with a grain of salt. Nothing could knock us out of our cloud because we had love. The kind of raw love that loved no matter what. The kind of love that felt right. The kind of love where the world could crash down around us and we didn't notice or care. Most importantly, we had each other.

Six months before this day, being here was the last place on Earth I thought I would be. This would be the day that I would marry the love of my life and my best friend. This would be the day that I would walk down a Las Vegas chapel isle filled with our closest friends and family with my pre-arranged music and bouquet of flowers in my sweaty palms to say the vows of marriage to a man that had rescued my heart.

Three years ago today I never would have imagined I would still be deeply in love with the person I said those vows to. I never would have imagined that we would share our life with the sweetest little boy named Blaze. I never would have imagined life could be this good.

Happy 3rd Anniversary to the most amazing husband ever! You are my rock!

-Kaci