10 Years Later…

How do I even start this? I have absolutely no idea. So many years have passed since my last entry.Literally, over 10 years.

This past week, I was scrolling through Instagram and I came across an old friend’s post. Under a few photos, she wrote this beautiful poem/description about staying home during this COVID-19 quarantine. This old friend was the one who introduced me to Open Diary about 14 years ago. Her post inspired me find my old diary. I didn’t know if this website would still be active after so many years. To my delight, after “reclaiming” my old diary, all these memories were restored and I just finished reading every single entry again. Wow. It’s amazing what can happen in a couple months, a few years, and a decade later…

Do I begin where I left off? No doubt that I will miss some very important details in regards to what has lead me to this moment. In this moment, I am sitting in my living room sipping on some coffee that’s growing cold. I’m sitting in the living room of a house that, as of one year ago, I became the owner of. Well, one of the owners. The other owner is my amazing fiance who sits across the room from me, playing solitaire in the floor by herself. That’s right. I said her. Let me catch you up.

Re-reading my last post is such a flashback to the past and the way I felt writing those words. I was truly head-over-heels in love with that man. Travis. What an adventure he was. What a learning experience. Let me rewind back to the beginning of us. It was the fall of 2009, I’m 20 years old, and I was walking into a small town bar with my stepmom, my two stepsisters, and one of my stepsister’s friends. I had traveled down from the townhouse I lived in with my best friend, Lacey. You know her. We lived an hour away where I was attending college. Back to the bar. I decided to travel down because my stepsister had begged me to come down and go to karaoke with them. After sitting down, I had scanned the room to find anyone worth flirting with for the night. I didn’t see anyone. The DJ called a man named Travis up to sing. Katie, the step-sis who triggered this night, stated, “Oh my gosh, this guy is so hot.” I turned to look, shrugged, and said “he’s okay” and turned back around with the stage to my back. She goes, “wait until you hear him sing.” When he started, I turned back around to face him in astonishment. His voice was deep and beautiful. When he sang, he had a certain swagger to him. A country swagger with beer in his left hand and his right hand grabbing the mic as he sang, tapping the heel of a cowboy boot to the beat. Boom. That started it. We officially were introduced that night through my stepmom, Regina, who frequented the karaoke bars and knew who he was. We danced. He made me laugh instantly and he had the brightest and bluest eyes I’d ever seen in my life. I was hooked after that. It took about 3 weeks and he was telling me he loved me as we were back roading down a country road. I was so nervous after he said it, I just chuckled and said, “okay.” Surprisingly, he took that well and it became a joke for the rest of our relationship. It didn’t take that long afterwards for me to finally admit to myself and to him that I, indeed, was in love with him too. Travis treated me like a queen. I felt like I was the center of his universe; he honestly made me feel like I was on top of the world. Like I stated in my last entry, we got engaged pretty shortly after we met. And the next few years would be an absolute roller coaster. It was somewhat of a fairy-tale relationship. I felt as if we were the couple that everyone wanted to be. We were two love birds, full of affection, obvious to everyone around that we were meant for each other.

On July 23, 2011, we were married in a beautiful refurbished barn out in the country. All the family and friends surrounding us. Travis sang to me as I walked down the aisle to him. My best friend, Lace, telling me that when the doors opened, I looked like an angel with the sun shining behind me and my Dad and Seamus on each arm. Throughout that day, Travis, at times, seemed so uncomfortable and sweating profusely. I thought it was just nerves and his tux making him hot. He disappeared without me noticing and changed into baseball shorts and a t-shirt. Once he reappeared he looked renewed. It was odd. His whole mood was different. That was the beginning of my suspicion. The feeling of suspicion can torment you. It can make it impossible to relax to the full extent. It can make you feel delusional; feeling paranoid 24/7 can make you feel like you’ve lost your ever-loving mind.

More on this later. Breakfast is almost ready and I’m going to go eat with my beautiful, soon-to-be wife.