— written June 27th, 2021 in SE Michigan —
If you’ve read any of my blogs, past or present, then you probably have seen me refer to “my Mate” — always with a capital M. My Mate is my husband, but he is more than JUST a husband. He is my partner, my soul mate, my best friend… the one person who can make me soar like an eagle or crash like a kite on fire… or go from a state of serene calm one moment, to a state of RAGE the next, lol. 😉
You do realize that HATE is NOT the opposite of LOVE, don’t you? They are closely related, both of them PASSIONS, and that is perhaps the reason why the ones we love most can make us the most infuriated or distraught. The opposite of LOVE is actually INDIFFERENCE — having little to no emotional response to someone or something. 😀
Let’s see, what can I tell you about my Mate? You may have seen pictures of him, and I will place a few below. He is 3 years older than me, the same age difference as were my own parents. I have ZERO children by him, and I was married once before and that man is the father of three of my four children. The oldest of my sons has a different father, but you’d never know it — he kept the same last name as his siblings, in honor of them. NO ONE thinks of my oldest son as a “half” sibling to the other three. And may I just say… ALL FOUR of my children are quite AWESOME!! 😀
Back to my awesome MATE… We met in a drug program that our parents sent us to, back in about 1984. I was 12 and he was 15. He tells the story of the first moment he saw me, with my “sexy legs” sticking out from under a desk… and he insists that he tried to talk to me several times… BUT the first time HE stuck out to ME, as an individual not just part of the crowd, is the day he got SICK of trying to talk to me (he says I was always surrounded by people and he couldn’t get my attention) and he literally picked me up, slung me over his shoulder, ran down the hallway with me, out the door, set me down on the ground and declared, “I’m gonna MARRY your ass!!”
LOL, he says he did NOT mean to say THAT… he just wanted to TALK to me… and now he was concerned I might call the cops on him for “assaulting” me, hahaha. But from my perspective, this was the single most INSANE thing I had ever experienced… and I LOVED it!! I was hooked. From then on, he was my “real deal”… and because I sincerely BELIEVED what he had said, for years I tried to postpone what I saw as the inevitable — to stop him from “owning” me, as a wife. BUT I was ALWAYS acutely aware of his presence, to the point that I really didn’t CARE about any other people at those meetings.
Well I won’t bore you with details and explanations… suffice it to say that LIFE HAPPENED and it wasn’t until 2012 that my Mate and I finally DID get married. We had ZERO contact for 19 years, during which time we each had a son born on January 5th… one year apart… so we chose that day to get married. Two birthdays and an anniversary… what an excuse to have a Winter Bash after everyone ELSE’s Holidays have wound down! 😉
Here’s a few pics of my favorite of all God’s creations… my Mate: