Category Archives: husband

A long line of love

Happy Valentine’s Day!

At that statement, you either just rolled your eyes or smiled and nodded. Perhaps a little bit of both.

I’ve been away from home for work the last few weeks, and I flew home to spend this day with my husband. But instead he’s in Oregon with his family, as his Dad’s been in the hospital. So ironically, I’m spending today all alone at home with my two cats.

But. That’s okay. I don’t need this day to tell me that my husband loves me and that I love him. I don’t need roses and chocolate to know we are each others everything. I have our history, our today, and our future to tell me that. I have a solid base of friendship that we’ve built upon over years. I have the dreams we dream, both big and small. I have the knowledge he’s only a phone call away, no matter what.

But more than that, I come from a long line of love. I knew when I said, “I do.” it would be for life. I would draw from the strength and lessons learned from all those loves before me and around me.  We got married in the same church  my parents and grandparents got married in… and today we have the support of friends and family to lift us up any time we hit rough patches.

And rough patches DO happen! Be they between us or around us.

Take today as an example. Having a sick parent is HARD. Especially when they are all the way across the country, dictating us be apart. A big stressful thing of it is that I can’t be right there to support my husband, and I know there’s been countless times all he’s wanted is a hug.

But we’re pulling together nonetheless with all the nuances of life around this, and we have been able to lean on friends in the spaces between to help us take it one day at a time. We’ll get to the other side of this stronger and having learned from it.

Learning from our past and each other is huge to build a solid future. No, we can’t predict the future… what events are to come or how we will react to them. But I do know I have one heck of support system — that long line of love — to lean on as anything and everything comes our way. And that’s priceless.

It’s all of THAT love that I pause and honor today.

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I debated sharing this here, but I might as well. Anyone who knows us in real life has asked us, “So how did y’all meet?” And they’ve received that really uncomfortable silence, because its not an easy story to tell.  Nonetheless, when SheKnows Media did a call out for unorthodox relationships that work, I decided to submit our love story.

I know better than to read comments, but in response to one of the comments on this story, I suppose having conversations over dinner with my parents are considered stolen moments. I’ll make sure and tell them that. Ha! Anyway, our story is ours and I love it, even the “ugly” parts.

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Making a change

Today, my husband officially heads out with a new title.

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My  husband is a musician. I don’t just mean that’s his job or what he does, it’s who he is. It’s as much a part of him as breathing. I knew this when I met him. I knew this when I said, “Of course!” when he proposed. I knew this when I said, “I do.”

I married a musician.

So when we made a decision recently, it wasn’t made without heavy thinking, soul searching, After more years than I know, and (even more importantly) specifically after six years in his last position, my husband put the keyboards in our garage and he will go drive tour bus full time.

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This decision was one that was somewhat made for us, as we pursue a new dream together of opening a bar, and as we’ve found ourselves in a deeper financial rut than we’ve faced in over five years.

My husband has been on the roster of a bus company for years, as he’s been a co-driver for the last several artists he’s worked for and most used the same bus leasing company. So upon finding himself off for a few weeks, he called the company to see if there was any driving to be done. With one phone call he went from having three weeks off to being on the road more than he’d been in a while.

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Photo not by me, but I’m so glad to have it. :)

So somewhat long story short, a hard decision was made. In a way, the decision ended up being made for us, but that’s on paper. In the heart, though, the decision was a lot more complicated.

My husband is a musician, but he won’t be playing music on the road for awhile. Oh, he’ll play on the road again. This is something I feel certain will happen. But for now… for now he’ll be one of those people getting your favorite groups across the country. This job has a lot more responsibility, and we’re juggling our schedule more than ever before. But he’s good at it, and there’s a lot of work out there to do.

Screenshot_2015-07-10-02-42-29-1 We know that this is for the best, but the last few weeks have been very bittersweet. My husband has traveled hundreds of thousands of miles with is bandmates. He’s spent holidays with them. There have been times he’s spent more time with them than with me. They’re family. And we both love them all. It’s going to feel very strange for a long time to not see those guys regularly.

In the same breath, I am excited for what adventures do lie ahead, too. I’m going to be able to go even more full-speed ahead on our opening our bar. We’re going to take a vacation later this year to visit my husband’s family for the first time in almost two years. And who knows what else lies ahead. Change is scary. Change can be sad. Change can also be exciting. I’m feeling all three of these right now. Friends and family have been super supportive, and that’s helped more than I can say.

So, here we go. We’ve got this.