Just Simply Jen

Tomorrow is my 8th wedding anniversary and as has become normal, my husband is away on Army business. It's not bothering me too much this year. Maybe I'm just growing accustomed to it. I have been doing a lot of thinking today and I have to say, it's been interesting. Most of it has been me looking back over how much my life has changed in the past 8 1/2 years. I'm definitely sure it's for the better.
When I met my husband, I was living in Georgia with a friend. I use the term loosely because he turned out to be not very much of a friend despite the fact that we had been close for six years. Anyway, I was living with this friend and working at Waffle house. My relationship with this friend was awful. He had changed so much and put me through a lot. I was in love with him so I put up with it. It ended up costing me a lot. Anyway, I met my husband through work because he was a regular customer of mine. I noticed his friend before I did him, but that is because he was quiet and his friend wasn't. His friends had the oddest conversations and I was always walking up at the wrong time. One day they were apparently talking about him not being able to get a date or something like that and one of his friend's said "Jennifer will go out with you, won't she?" I said no and walked away as quickly as possible. For all I knew he was one of the freaks that are always in there. I couldn't have been more wrong.
He wasn't dettered and kept asking me out. During this time my relationship with my "friend" was getting much worse and everyone told me I deserved better and to be happy so I decided to go out with this guy who kept asking me out. We had a great first date and had a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time after that just talking and hanging out. He started bringing me to church with him, which was something I had been missing greatly. I was still in a relationship with this "friend" but one night that changed drastically.
I have asthma but had not had any problems for years. Working at WH apparently aggravated the asthma due to the cigarette smoke. It got so bad that one night I had to be brought to the emergency room. They treated me for the asthma and I didn't think much of anything until the doctor came in the room and asked me if there was any chance I could be pregnant. I was scared to death and looked at my "friend." The look I recieved was not helping the being scared so I did the first thing that came to mind. I lied. As soon as the doctor left, I looked at him again and said "What if I am pregnant? What are we going to do?" His response is what killed any feelings I had for him. "I don't know what you're going to do. It's not my problem. I'm going to Nashville in January." I was crushed, terrified and felt worse that I ever thought possible. I was mad at myself for loving someone so selfish. There was no way that I would be in that situation if he hadn't pressured me into sleeping with him in the first place. If he hadn't continually done so for a long time, using fear and other tactics. I knew I couldn't go home if I was pregnant. I had nothing. I hit a low I didn't know existed.
After church one night a few weeks later I spilled everything to K (I'm going to use that to refer to my husband for now and F for the other guy.) He was shocked but never judged me. He never spoke down to me. All he did was hug me and tell me that I knew what I had to do. I was so sure that I would never see him again, but he was back the next day. I ended my so called relationship with F but I couldn't move out. I had nowhere to go and since I was paying most of the bills anyway, I didn't feel I should have to. I gained new friends through my friendship with K. These were wonderful people that I love dearly. K and I became closer and closer and eventually we officially considered ourselves a couple. I remeber when I fell in love with him. I remember the moment I knew i would marry him. I knew with all of my heart that God sent him to me.
Things got really bad with F after this point. He became verbally abusive and at one point I feared he would physically hurt me. He had a horrible temper that I had seen in action many many times. Having it directed at me scared me to death. K's mother was worried too and helped me find my own apartment. She barely knew me but she knew her son loved me and that was enough for her to put herself on the line to help me. She is one of the most amazing and accepting people I have ever met. Life got better for me after I moved out except I was constantly sick. The question of whether or not I was pregnant loomed over us, but he stayed beside me. It wasn't too long before we had our answer. I had a miscarriage. At the time I didn't realize that is what was happening, but a little over a year later I had a second one with my then husband and it was then I realized that is what had happened. I never told anyone. I didn't even tell my husband until a few years ago. All he knew is that I wasn't pregnant and we were engaged by then so I didn't want to ruin the happiness. I was relieved.
We were married six months after we became engaged. At this point we were inseparable. We had agreed to wait until marriage to have sex and it was so nice to be in a pressure less relationship. I was so happy and loved being his wife. We found out that November I was expecting and we were over the moon. Jan 10, 2000 we lost our baby boy. We named him after K and I have to say saying goodbye was the hardest thing ever. I sank into a very dangerous depression. It tested our marriage greatly.May of that year we found out once again that I was pregnant. My husband was thrilled and scared at the same time. I was beyond angry and far beyond terrified. At this point I was suicidal with the depression. I say to this day that finding out I was pregnant saved my life. I would never intentionally hurt an innocent life and that made me decide to live. I eventually became happy once I made it past the point I had lost my other two babies. We were beyond poor but I don't remember ever being happier. When my son was born, we were back to being the couple we were when we married. 7 months later we decided to move to be closer to K's family and he was able to transfer to another store that offered better benefits. We were so happy and loved being a family. A few years of that and my husband became unhappy with his work which had him pulling away from us. I won't go into details, but at one point I was really scared he was going to leave us. We went to visit a friend that fall. This friend was in the Army and while there he talked to my husband. When we got home, my husband decided to look into the military. I was unhappy with the idea. There was a war going on and i didn't want to deal with the possibility of losing a husband in it. I didn't want to have to be a geographically single parent. I grew up in a divorced home and i wanted my son's father there and active in his life. I had so many reasons I didn't want it, but he joined anyway. I admit my reasons were selfish and I ended up submitting to what we felt was God's will for our lives. We made it through basic and the separation alright. I missed him like crazy but with letters as our only communication we became closer. AIT was nice because we had a little more contact. When he called to tell me we were moving to Hawaii I was so excited. We made it here and I loved it. I loved it up until I found out that in three months I was losing my husband for a year. I was so angry. If we had known before we moved, I would have stayed in SC. Instead I was going to be alone in a new state in the middle of an ocean thousands of miles away from my family for an entire year! You had to be kidding me! It wasn't two weeks after that when I found a lump in my breast and was sent through a battery of tests and none of them had good results. IN the end a biopsy cleared me of any thoughts of cancer but I spent the month it took to get there in fear. I ended up with an infection from the biopsy and that stole the last few weeks I had with my husband.
My heart broke the day he left. I spent my first Christmas ever alone. I had my son, but it as hard to be cheerful for him when I was so broken. It got better. I got stronger and my husband and I grew closer. I never thought it was possible but we fell even farther in love with each other. He came home for R&R and I was so glad to be in his arms again. A few days after that i was hit with yet another crazy illness and that sort of put a damper on our time together. After he left I fell into a bad depression thanks to the illness but was blessed with wonderful doctor and amazing friends to help me through it. I am proud to say that I survived the 8 months left of his deployment and became so much stronger because of it. We have had a few issues since he's been home, but nothing major. I can say that we are still very much in love with each other and have made it through another month of separation. He is my world. I can't wait to see him again. It's so amazing to think about the fact that we've been apart for 16 months out of the past two years but we are closer than ever. I am so glad that he didn't go away that night I poured my heart out to him and never return. I can't imagine I'd be this happy without him.
Thanks for letting me rant. It's good to get these thoughts out of my head. I'm not going to get anything accomplished if I keep them in there.