My Baby Tolerates

Ya know, a lot can change over the course of a couple of weeks? I’m engaged! That’s right, engaged. A friend of mine told me he saw it coming. He said everyone saw it coming. I guess he meant everyone but T and I. We were both surprised. I know you are never supposed to compare your marriages, but I have to just this once and I’ll never do it again. I never put a lot of thought into it the first time around. Just blurted out one night, “let’s get married.” Next thing I know, I was cohabitating with someone and moving on. I’m kind of a jump right in kind of guy. With T, I knew the first time I saw her I wanted to marry her. She was smart. I find intelligents (I know) very sexy. She was pretty (not that it mattered, but it’s a plus). She was funny (BIG). She was very gracious. People who know me may say I’m a little bit conservative (again, I know). She makes me look like a flaming liberal! She may be the only person in the world who loves Ronald Reagan more than me (my sisters used to call me Alex P. Keaton, from Family Ties fame). She’s also pretty keen on the Duke. She tolerates all my BS (occasional and otherwise). I’ve been working on her now for about four years. I have all these things I do with the boys that she tolerates. She knows that every January I have to go to the Brother Olympics. Every March there is the Whiskey and Whiskers. Every May is Weekend at Buddy’s. In the summer she must tolerate the Schwab Family Picnic. Every September, usually on her birthday weekend, the Guns ‘n Guts. And I will never be home on my birthday weekend because it is the opening of deer season. I’ve even thrown in a couple of pre-emptive strikes saying my son and grandson are getting older and we may have to make some weekends available to have male bonding time. She’s pretty much conceded one weekend per month I will disappear! Yet, she still loves me. She knows in the spring, I fish with my brothers on Wednesday nights. Also I fish on Wednesdays in October. I’ve always joked with her that I wanted to get married by Elvis in Vegas. I proposed on the steps of Graceland! Now I know we will have a wedding in Austin, but she’s ok with flying to Vegas right after to get married by Elvis. She called me the other day to recommend we get married on Elvis’s birthday to make sure I never forget our anniversary. I told her that this coming year it happens to be on a Saturday January 8th. She said that was fine BUT what if UT is playing in the National Championship that day, we’ll have to work around that. She KNOWS how I feel about weddings on days that UT is playing (it’s actually happened 3 times in the last 4 years and I’ve bitched BIG). And she knows we would have to work around it. She’s ok with knowing when UT is playing; there will be barbeque, and probably several friends drinking beer in the living room. She knows that whenever one of my kids calls me, the world stops and I answer the phone. I say all that, to get to this…………..she loves me completely. Even though I’m not perfect (close, but not quite). She loves the fact that I have idiosyncrasies. She loves me even though I can be anal, grumpy and even stubborn (Again, I know). She loves all of me. She even loves the bad. I know because I can feel it. It’s a great feeling. And here is the cool thing. I feel the same way. I love me too…………….just kidding. Well kind of. I do love me, but what I meant to say was I feel the same way about her. I love all of her. And once I got a hold of that concept I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Kind of makes the doubts subside. For the last several years I’ve lived life by the seat of my pants. I figured one day I’d wake up and move to Colorado or something. I’ve often talked about bugging out and just taking off. Now I don’t want to. I don’t want to miss any of the rest of my life with her.