As of today, I am married to a 40 year old man and I think that I am taking that tidbit of fact much harder than he is. Time has not progressed for me like it does for most people and because of my med addiction, I basically lost 9 years of time. While my body is technically 38 years old, my rediscovered mind and spirit are much younger. That’s why this is so tough for me … all the wasted years.
It also stings just a little bit that we are not where we imagined we would be when Derek turned the BIG 4-0. We were supposed to have built our dream house by now. I was supposed to be working on my doctorate. We were supposed to be close to being debt free. It’s just a tough thing when your plans don’t quite work out.
The really shocking thing is that I really don’t regret much of it and I don’t know that I would change it if I could. Had all of this not happened, I wouldn’t be where I am now. I surely wouldn’t be writing for this site. I wouldn’t have the opportunities that I have now and I wouldn’t be headed for fabulous things. I would be living a “vanilla life” with no real passion, but because of the hardships that we have endured we are such strong people that not much distracts us from our new plans. Oh yes, we have plans – plans that are beyond anything that we could have ever imagined for our lives. Good plans.
While he isn’t as skinny as he used to be (the man USED to have a 28 inch waist) and there is hair growing in places that hair shouldn’t grow (no – he is NOT wearing a sweater vest while swimming), I will celebrate the fact that I am married to a 40 year old man … one who stayed with me when most others would have run and one who will be by my side when this all turns around. One who will walk with me in the sunshine and join me in my victories, the ones that are so much sweeter because he stayed with me through the pain.
This nearly made me cry.