Raaga - Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin from Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin Music Videos, Hindi Video Songs.

Raaga - Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin from Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin Music Videos, Hindi Video Songs.

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Forever and Always

Forever and Always

       Well, this all started off in Summer School this past summer (you know how they say you can meet people in the strangest and most unexpected place) so anyway... It was about the second week and I was in class and he walked in. It was this handsome, attractive young man and I was infatuated about him. so, I could do nothing but stare at him that day. And then, what could have been more amazing, and nervously coincidental at the same time, he sat next to me (not much of a big deal, but at the time it was, trust me) so, I saw the way he looked at me when I asked him to pass me a book. Little did I know, this was the way he would always look at me. Two day later, we had to evacuate the building and that is the first time I had the chance to talk to him. So, every single day, I wouldn't take an eye off him. I was too busy being toungue-twisted, sweaty, and clammy to have an unervous conversation with him. In the class, we would have movie day every friday. and when a certain part of the movie would come (ex: kissing, intimacy, etc.) and we would look at each other in a really strange but hilarious way. Sometimes, we occasionally laugh about it and continue watching the movie, but every day we would walk out the door and I would just look at him and want to put my arm around him, hold his hand and kiss him.

When we arrived in the mornings, he would wait for me only to have to separate when we get to our particular sides of the hallway. every day it would be like this. It was my birthday party and I was giving out invites and I gave him an invite. He couldn't make it but, we started talking on the phone a lot after that. and everyday I grew even more nervous around him and became so unsure about him. but, over time I knew that eventually I would have to say something in length.) I wondered about a lot: If he liked me back, If he even wanted anything to do with me, or, if he even had a girlfriend.

               One day, our teacher was at the back of the classroom, and she was giving a lecture and remember, he is sitting directly next to me, so, I felt like I was being watched, so, all of a sudden, I looked over at him, and he happened to be staring at me. At first I was in denial and thought he was looking out the window but, it was me he was taking a glimpse at. So, I was kind of stunned and went home wondering. The next friday happened to be the last day and we had to go back to finish finals and I was waiting on him (this day I decided to confess to him that I liked him and I actually wrote two poems to let out clues and also planned to kiss him but that backfired on me) so, he came out from finishing his finals and me, him. and one of my friends decided to talk a walk all the way around the school. It came time for my friend to go home, and that left me and Darold. and I moved closer to him and talked to him some more. It was time for him to go and I gave him the poems I wrote and told him "after you get done reading them, throw them away".

            We went home that same night and talked on the phone. I had asked him what and who did he think I was referring to in both poems. Darold had no Idea it was him. Then, I told him I liked him and that I was In love with him. Clutching on to my pillow, waiting for a response from him, I was even more excited when he told me he felt the same way about me and that his heart always went out to me. The next day, we had gotten together. So far we have been together for almost four months and its been beautiful. to everyone that has true feelings for anyone, my advice to them is that they should tell them because you'll never know how they feel unless you say something. He has become a part of me and my heart has always went out to him too. Behind those graciously good looks is faith, kindness, intellegence, and honesty and I wouldn't trade the world for him.

When You Least Expect It

When You Least Expect It

             It has been said a million times – you fall in love at a time you least expect it. Okay, go ahead now and say “I am not expecting love to come my way today.” Kidding =)
Seriously, mine came at a time when I got fed up with love. Having lived a quarter of a century, I had my share of stories of unrequited love and bad break ups (which one is good anyway). Hence, after another hopeless tussle with cupid, I was ready to remain single for at least a couple of years.
Or so I thought, until fate crawled in.
It was Christmas time and I bet almost every single person on earth can feel the pressure of not having someone to snuggle with on such cold days. Oh, maybe not me. I was working then as an events manager and loving my job all the way.
          
                 I got home one day with news that my best friend from grade school class is coming home to Manila from sunny California. And she wanted to host a reunion. It had been fourteen years since our graduation. Silly kids, I thought. Whatever happened to the bunch I studied and played with? I have yet to find out.

Lovely Who

              Days before Blessy’s arrival (yes, the homecoming queen), the reunion planner, Aleli and I were frantic over the preparations. While it wasn’t that difficult to get the contact numbers of our other classmates, it was a challenge to make them come over. After all, it was just a day after Christmas that we’d meet for a dinner.
People who didn’t respond to Aleli’s messages are then sent to me for a second round of prodding. One guy caught my fancy, though.
“Lovely who?” he replied on SMS.
“Lovely, your classmate in grade school,” I said tersely. The brat in me wanted to add, “It was the girl who finished first in class while you were the boy who never spoke. Now you remember?” I did not dare say that, of course.
“I’ll see if I can come.”
That is probably the worst reply to an invitation. He should have said yes or no as I am not fond of gray areas.
Alright, I said to myself as I typed in “I know where your house is and if you are not coming tonight, I’ll drop by myself.”
He showed up.

Lawrence Who

              Lawrence is one nice boy every teacher would love. He comes to school in neat uniform, combed hair and finished homework. He never fought with kids in and out of class and stays behaved from arrival to dismissal.
But while he is of model behaviour, he is utterly forgettable. In fact, I don’t remember a single moment with him.
The dinner went fun as expected. Lawrence shared twenty words or less. I wasn’t surprised.
The group decided to go out the next night as Blessy wanted to experience clubbing Manila-style. What the heck, I don’t dance. Lawrence was there too without me having to make a threat this time.

          Before Blessy’s return to the US, the group prepared a simple party for her. Lawrence and I agreed to split 
payment for a huge pizza. Unfortunately that day, I went out of cash and had no time to find an ATM machine. While he’s not ecstatic about the idea of me insisting to pay him another day, I thought I’d still do that.

Someone to Watch over Me?

   “Look,” Blessy said as she secretly showed a picture on her phone. It was me with Lawrence in the background.
“You look nice together,” she mused.
Oh Blessy. She’s always like that. Since we were kids, we enjoyed making fun of ourselves (and others). Actually, that’s how we came to be best friends.
“Crazy,” I thought. Give it up.

Pizza Payback Time

          I wouldn’t have called him if it wasn’t a boring New Year’s Eve I had. Not a bad day to pay debt either. So there, we met at the same pizza house but instead of handing him the dough, we decided to spend the money on one medium-sized New York’s Finest.
Probably it was the first time I really noticed him. He is neither loud nor attention-grabbing but he definitely gets more enticing as a person once you begin to know him. And I didn’t know the guy could talk. At least, more than twenty words.
After the pizza date, we were inseparable.

The Deal

         Alas, he wasn’t as free as I thought. Apparently, he has a girlfriend he’d been seeing for three years and during the week we were together, they weren’t in speaking terms.
Suddenly, I was thrown back to reality. I am a believer, though, in the saying that if he’s still hers, he’s not yours.
Right away, I told Lawrence that I won’t be seeing him again. It was a risk, I know. While other girls would wait patiently until the guy breakups with his girlfriend, I can’t. You see, I had been waiting all my life for something real. And if this ain’t real, no way would I spend another hour on waiting.

The Worst 24 Hours

             Pain is only a matter of time, that’s how I remember it. Yes, there were moments I wanted to call him and take back whatever I said. But I did not and I guess it paid off.
Men, when faced with a situation when they have to choose, they will. But give them time to think about something and they will maximize that time. Maybe until your wrinkles appear.
Lawrence called me up just a day after I said bye-bye. I was really surprised. He broke with his girlfriend. Later I learned that the relationship was on the verge of breakup anyway and all it needed was the final kick to say quits.
We met the same day and it was really odd. We were both confused on what we have that time. It took one kiss to seal the deal and many more to keep it going.

Not another Whirlwind Romance

          In a matter of two weeks, Lawrence and I met again, dated, said goodbye and got back to call each other “mine”. All in two weeks.
You couldn’t guess what happened on the third week. Can you? Oh, we packed our bags and lived together. We were crazy. It was really crazy.
Some people would call it whirlwind romance. I guess not. To us, it’s more like destiny seized without wasting time and without letting go.

Fairy tales do come true

            I worked as a photographer for a company contracted in Florida who owned various restaurants. One night, I was sent to greet the guests coming in the restaurant before they were seated. I had just worked at another location and I was extremely tired. It was a couple of days before my 22nd birthday and my co-workers were planning a party.

           

             As they were giving me the details of the agenda, a gentleman who was a seater at the restaurant caught me yawning and came up to me and said, " you really shouldn't do that, it hides your wonderful smile." When I heard him say that I melted.

           After my shift was over and I was walking out of the area, I was talking to my boss and he came up behind me and threw his arms around me and jokingly told her that I was dating him. I thought that was so cute and the funny thing was is I didn't even know his name. As Iturned to leave, I handed him my cell phone number and left.

I didn't hear from him for 2 days. I had given up all hope and thought that it was another "dud". But he was the only thing that was on my mind for the next couple of days.

            At my "surprise" birthday party, he popped up and gave me a big hug and then asked me to date him. Of course I said yes and we found out that we had so much in common. It was like I was Cinderella and he was Prince Charming. ( I know, as sappy as it sounds , it's really true!)

After a few months of dating, he and I moved in together and he asked me to marry him! We still haven't set the date but everytime I'm with him, it's truely like living a true fairy tale!

Shy

Shy

                was a fifteen-year-old paper carrier. I’d like to say that I sped around on my bike flinging papers hither and yon, hitting the exact front doorstep with each toss and looking like a San Francisco bike messenger in training; but in truth, I crept around on foot, groggy and grumpy, lugging my giant sack over one shoulder, and feeling very uncool about it all. Then one pre-dawn morning I went out to pick up my stack of 25 Montgomery County Records, and there was an announcement bundled to the top. An essay contest just for paper carriers, sponsored by Parade magazine, would award the winner a two-week trip to Yugoslavia. I was good at essays and had been raised to believe that travel is enriching, so I wrote one on “what the newspaper means to me,” and I won the contest.

              It turns out this contest was held all over the country and a couple of children were chosen from each state. I was issued a blue blazer with a “Parade Magazine” patch on the left breast, and asked to pack a uniform of gray skirt and white blouse. They rounded the hundred of us up, chartered a plane, flew us to Yugoslavia, packed us on about five tour buses, and drove us around the place. My bus’ theme songs were were “Rock me like a hurricane” and “Come on feel the noise.” It was basically a traveling summer camp, complete with counselors. I viewed a lot of inexplicable monuments, listened to a lot of lectures about Slav hero Tito, and ate lots of breaded veal. I had some kind of feeling that there must be more to foreign travel than this, but was much more concerned with preventing myself from being the object of any vicious gossip and generally hiding from the cool kids for whom I was always an easy target.

             Then I met Dennis. All I remember of him was that he had a look not unlike that of Ricky Schroeder, if you remember those teen heartthrob days. He was shy and sweet and he liked me, and I liked him. We were assigned to separate busses, so mostly we tried to secretly find out each other’s room numbers at the hotels where we stayed, then plan opportunities to pass one another in the hallways and say “Oh, hi!” and walk on. But then, on one of the last few days of our tour, the busses pulled up someplace truly interesting.

                    Surrounded by ancient walls, the cobblestoned city of Dubrovnik was a truly enchanted place. All cars parked outside the city gates, and within those gates nearly every building, fountain, and street was made of ancient stone. It seemed as unchangeable and permanent a place as might exist in some fairy tale. A maze of streets and alleys beckoned us to wander down narrow passages where the laundry of quaint inhabitants hung on lines overhead and where high above us windows were opened against the summer heat while curtains of antique lace and raggedy gingham fluttered in the breeze. For once, the counselors set us free to play and explore—sans guide, sans educational lecture, sans pre-selected cafeteria meal, knowing we could only go as far as the city walls allowed.
For the first time Dennis and I actually had a chance to walk and talk together outside the confines of hotel walls. We bought the most delicious and unusual ice cream in a cute little shop, then wandered the magical city with our cones. Approaching the city’s external wall, we discovered a hidden staircase.  Furtive glances behind us solidified the unspoken teenagers’ pact that if this is forbidden, we of course must do it. Giggling, we snuck up and up and up until we found ourselves on top of the wall itself. It was probably six or eight feet thick, this wall, and Dennis and I walked along it, astounded to find ourselves gazing out at the sparkling Aegean Sea.
Finally we came to a place where the wall was built around a large outcropping of rock. The sea came right up to it and splashed and exploded dramatically, throwing off little star-bright droplets of spray that arced up, over, and back down into the endless turquoise water. We stopped there and I suddenly realized how far from home I was. I marveled that I would soon walk away from this magical place and be back in the teenage traveling summer camp. I felt like I should be changed by the beautiful and exotic sight, that I should from this moment forward be someone different, someone experienced, someone deep. At that moment Dennis reached out to hold my hand, but I still held my cone, and in fact, so did he. Our cones knocked together. We gobbled our ice creams hastily, almost pretending that we had both suddenly become outrageously hungry, then linked our sticky hands together, nearly daring a kiss.

                We watched the sea, noticing the sun going down and its sublime reflection in the water and realized it was time to be getting back to our groups and our busses. It’d be no good arriving late and facing the jeers, catcalls, and gossip that was likely to ensue upon our conspicuous entrance. I felt like, looking at this amazing sight, holding hands with this amazing boy, being on top of the world and all alone like this, none of that should matter. Nevertheless, we turned back and walked slowly, holding hands, all the way to the staircase, where we parted hands, scampered down, and ran back to the busses like two people who just happened to be running the same way at the same time. Within four days, I was back home in Pennsylvania and he in Wisconsin. For my own part, I noticed I was no deeper or more mature from the experience, at least not yet, and felt disappointed. Dennis and I exchanged a few letters. School took over our lives. I realized it was over, whatever it had been.
A few years later, I heard on the radio that Dubrovnik was destroyed by bombs in the Serbo-Croatian War, but it wasn’t until twenty years after that that I shed a tear for it. I found myself on one of my typical corporate lunch-break strolls in downtown Santa Fe, and discovered a new shop that sold gelato. I sat down for a treat, tasted the delicious concoction, and realized—my God, it was gelato. That’s what it had been. Gelato. That day in Dubrovnik, holding sticky hands above the salt-spray and the world. Gelato. Gelato. Gelato.

29 Years Ago

29 Years Ago

29 years ago…
              A little boy sits on the edge of my mother’s green tweed couch, his eyes exploring the length of the fishing rod in his hands.  His fisted hand circles…in make-believe of reeling…pulling in an imaginary fish.  Meanwhile, he tips an ear toward his father’s conversation, as fishing questions and answers are exchanged.
On the other side of that fishing conversation is my father – detailing the steps necessary to casting the line, controlling the slack, hooking a fish, and removing the fish from the hook. 
          
                   The little boy’s eyes remain wide.  His sideways attention focuses on the information his father gathers.  His hands move with quiet wonderment – reeling, feeling, and dreaming with his new pole.  Well, it’s new to him.
My father is handing over one of his fishing poles for the sake of a young boy who has the desire to fish.  The boy’s father is learning, so that he can teach his son.
From the kitchen, I secretly peer around the living room wall at this six year old kid.  I think, so different than the others I know.  He’s quiet.  He hangs on his father’s every word.  He’s determined, in his own six-year-old way, to successfully reel in the big one.  He must live in a home much like mine.  He seems to be like me.

4 years later…
I find myself in a strange but warmly welcoming home, with its own smell of roasting meat and apple pie.  It is the home of the boy who’d been at my house for a fishing pole.  I only know this because my father refreshes my memory.
I haven’t seen the boy since he’s been to my house for the pole.  Even forgot his face until I see it again.  It’s different now.  Older, less quiet.  In his own home, he’s comfortable, more talkative.  He eats dinner with gusto, like he belongs there. 
Today, I am the quiet, listening one.

                After dinner, I find myself in the seat of a pickup truck.  Also in the truck are the boy, his sister, and his mother.  As his mother bends the truck along country roads on the way back from the market, my comfort level builds and we chatter as children do…about hilarious happenings in our own neighborhoods.  About our pets.  About our favorite doughnut and ice cream flavors.
Then…the conversation shifts.  The boy suddenly decides that I’m stupid.  That my stories are stupid.  That I’m really not worth his breath.  The ride is completed in silence, save the droning of country music and his mother’s occasional attempt at heightening our spirits. 
On my way back home, my mom says that how little boys act when they don’t know how to express themselves.  I decide that his stories were pretty stupid, too.  But can’t seem to forget them.


10 years later…
My work in the office of a construction company delivers me right into the middle of male conversations.  Talk of women, beer, and pending jobs flow freely through my adjoining office, and I have little sense of my own space. 
Additionally, that space is invaded by a man...daily.  Pleasing to the eye, his presence detracts from my attention to my job – annoys me into noticing his advances, and prompts me agree that yes, I would be at the company Christmas party that night.
At the party, dozens of people separate me from the man.  But those people might as well be transparent, because he’s all I see.
His wide shoulders are rounded with easiness, his speech flowing with comfort as he stands surrounded by his peers.  His laughter is physical, with a bend at the waist and a slap on his knee.  He wipes his hand across his forehead and down over his right eye, a gesture that seems to wipe away laughter in preparation for the next joke.
When he approaches me, it is with a lanky gate, like that of a youthful Marlboro Man.  The noisy dining hall seems to fall silent.

               His blond and brown curls peek around tiny, perfect ears and grasp the edges of smooth cheekbones.  His brown eyes are dark, like the mud under a shade tree the day after rain.  His mouth is small with plump rosy lips.  His rounded chin juts northward, as if wanting to touch his manly, adequate nose.  He is packaged in smooth, tanned skin, the color of the desert at sunset. 
His height and build should belong to a professional athlete, but are rather evident of his manual labor.  His lengthy arms lead to calloused, crooked digits topped with wide, flat fingernails.  His knuckles are broad.  His hands are rough, yet sweet. 

3 years later…
That wishing fisher boy, that insult-delivering 10-year-old, that curly-haired, genuine, good hearted man is now my husband.  We hadn’t recognized each other at work, or at the Christmas party, or even during our first official date. 
It wasn’t until our parents pointed out that we had met, years before, that we finally connected the faces of today to the faces of yesterday.
I still peek at him in secret amazement.  He still listens to my stories (but without the insults).  He still invades my space, but only because I’ve extended a lifelong invitation for him to do so. 
The biggest change?  He’s no longer fishing.  He’s caught the one he wants…and I’ve been reeled in…without a fight.

Love in the Unlikeliest of Places

Love in the Unlikeliest of Places

                    I had been separated from my first husband for two years.  The marriage had ended quickly, in less than six months, and I was simply waiting for the court to approve my divorce papers to make it official.  What I had to show for my brief union, though, was an amazing little boy.  I had thrown myself into mothering him.  Graydon was my world, and the bond we built with each other, the two of us learning together, was beautiful.  I wasn’t looking to add anyone to our duo and, in any case, I knew the dating prospects in my hometown were slim.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure any quality man would be interested in a real relationship with a 30-year-old mother, so the dates I did have were casual and fleeting. 

             July Fourth, Independence Day, had special significance for me that year, since it was also the week my divorce was finalized.  I was relieved and grateful to be finished with that chapter in my life.  To celebrate my personal independence, my best girlfriend Eva flew into town.  With my parents along as babysitters, we ventured to our family lake house for the long weekend.  Aside from attending a friend’s annual Fourth of July family-style party, our only plan was to swim, sit in the sun, talk, relax, and drink wine--nothing ambitious. 
One of the party hostesses, Laurie, an engineer in her mid-30s, and a much more adventurous soul than me, talked us into accompanying her the next day to a place on the lake called, “the Sandbar.”  Although I had spent summers on this same lake for over 15 years, and despite the fact the Sandbar was apparently notorious among the single, party crowd, I had never heard of it.  Laurie described it as an unpredictable, no-holds-barred sort of floating singles bar.  I don’t know if it was Laurie’s enthusiastic sales pitch, or that it was a rare opportunity to step out of my mom role, but Eva and I agreed to accompany her on an escapade to the Sandbar.
                   
                 Laurie arrived at the house to pick us up in a boat that (no kidding) was named “Hotties,” a play on her family name.  We grabbed a cooler, hopped on, and Laurie sped away.  As we approached the Sandbar, we saw three long lines of boats, about 30 in each row, tied together in a “U” shape.  Music blared from several boats, and we could see people hopping from one boat to another.  Other partiers floated in the water, on rafts, swim noodles, and inner tubes, most with beer in hand.  The scene reminded me of a “Porky’s” movie: hundreds of barely dressed and inebriated partiers swimming, and singing and dancing on boats.  I wondered how I would survive in the midst of this apparent debauchery and where we would tie up our boat. 
The answer arrived when we came within shouting distance of one of the lines of boats; three tanned and well-toned men waved to us.  I’m not sure if it was the fact that we were three unknown blondes in bikinis, or that the boat was called “Hotties,” but the men parted the line of boats much like Moses and the Red Sea, and guided our boat into the middle. 

               Right away, one of the three men caught my eye.  He had a very athletic body, wore a palm leaf cowboy hat, and had a beer in each hand.  Offering one to me, he asked my name.  “Allie,” I said, “And yours?”  “Bruce,” he said, tipping his hat toward me.  I wondered if this guy was for real.
Amidst the chaos and drunken revelry, we started a conversation.  Bruce told me about the triathlon he had run the day before; I told him about the 5k I planned to run the following weekend.  But, that was where our similarities ended.  He was a hunter; I was a vegetarian.  I had graduated at the top of my law school class; he had taken 6 years to complete his undergraduate degree, focusing on soccer instead of his studies.  He had a thick Texas drawl; I spoke the crisp and correct diction of someone raised by an English teacher.  But, over those several hours, we were continuously drawn back into conversation with one another.  There was definitely a strong, undeniable mutual attraction.

                   When it was time for us to go, Bruce said that he would be in my “neck of the woods Monday week,” and that he’d like to take me to lunch.  “Monday week?” I said, completely confused.  “Next Monday,” he said, crisply, teasing me.  I certainly thought Bruce was attractive, and fun, but I didn’t really think he was my type, long-term.  What the heck, I decided; it might be fun to spend some time with him.
Before we met for our date, I needed to let Bruce know about Graydon, the most important person in my life, and to allow him the opportunity to retract his lunch invitation.  I was nervous about telling Bruce, and I thought he might well say he wasn’t interested in getting involved with a single mom, especially since we had met under such carefree, decadent circumstances.  When I told Bruce over the phone about Graydon, his response was, “Not a problem.  I was raised by a single mother, too.”

             We began seeing one another regularly, coordinating our schedules so we could meet when my parents were available to baby sit Graydon.  “I just want you to know that I am dating other people,” I said.  “That’s fine,” Bruce replied, “I’m not.”  Each of the other men that I went out with seemed threatened by the fact that I was dating several people casually.  Bruce was not at all threatened, and he never questioned me about my other dates.
Bruce and I dated for over three months before I said I was ready to have an exclusive relationship, and before I let him meet Graydon.  In fact, he was the only one of my dates whom I allowed to meet my son; I did not want men coming in and out of Graydon’s life, especially since he had only sporadic contact with his father.  Bruce had never pressured me to meet Graydon, but his calm, steady, self-confident personality convinced me that he was the right man and that this was the right time.

              Arriving at my house for the scheduled meeting with Graydon, Bruce bore gifts of tractor- and truck-themed books.  He knew from our talks that Graydon enjoyed anything that moved: trains, trucks, cars and tractors.  Graydon was thrilled with the gift, and he asked Bruce to read the books to him.  They sat together, reading on the couch, with Graydon identifying the front-end loaders, skid steers, and bulldozers.
Later that afternoon, we went for a walk and wound up in a nearby park that had a beautiful meandering creek.  Graydon and I had been there many times before and, each time, we would walk over the stone bridge and look down at the water flowing below.  Sometimes, we brought a stone or two to cast into it.  That day, Graydon and Bruce wound up in the creek, fishing around for stones, getting mud up to their knees, laughing and exploring.  Their first meeting could not have gone better, I thought.  And, against my better judgment, which cautioned me to be reserved and practical, I began to envision the three of us together as a family. 

                 In the months that followed, we spent a lot of time together, the three of us.  Bruce changed diapers and assisted with potty training; he read to Graydon and taught him to dribble a soccer ball; he pushed the baby jogger when we ran together.  We took time when we could to go out on dates, just Bruce and me, but those times were not as frequent as most couples get when they are first dating.  Bruce never complained.  He was patient and loving, kind and funny.  The part that won me over, though, was that Bruce was exactly who he said he was.  There was no pretense about him, no artifice, and no different personality when talking to his boss versus talking to his friends.  I had never met anyone like him.

            One year after we began dating, on top of a mountain in Alaska, Bruce proposed to me.  Of course, my answer was “of course!”  We were married after a one-year engagement, outside, in the Appalachian Mountains.  I arrived to my wedding ceremony, a hilltop covered in buttercups, in a red pickup truck.  Graydon walked me down the aisle and gave me away to Bruce, who looked incredibly handsome in a black cowboy hat and tuxedo with tails.  We exchanged vows that we had written ourselves, standing in front of a hand-crafted grapevine arch with wildflowers woven through it.  Bruce told me that he had loved me all his life, and that even before he met me, he knew I was just who he would find.  I told Bruce that he was even more than the man of my dreams. 

             Our minister wore black overalls.  Graydon and a few of his four-year-old friends ran around picking flowers during the ceremony.  The design (and lack of design) of our wedding truly reflected our personalities and the nature of our relationship.  When the ceremony neared its end, Graydon came up to me with a bunch of buttercups he had picked (many with dirt-covered roots still attached), and I tucked them in with my wedding bouquet.  The three of us then walked together hand-in-hand down the yellow buttercup-covered hilltop to begin our lives together.
That was eight years and three more children ago.  Bruce is still the same down-to-earth, amazing man I met ten years ago.  Certainly, we have had our ups and downs, and our share of trying times.  Marriage, it is true, takes a great deal of hard work.  But, our love has deepened in a way I never knew was possible, and we have both grown individually and as in our relationship as a couple.  I believe ours is an enduring love that has grown through the hurt, into forgiveness, understanding, rebuilding and renewal.  And, I am forever grateful for the day when I abandoned my usual reserve, threw caution to the wind, jumped on a boat named “Hotties,” and sped away to the Sandbar.