Vacation?

Disney World is a magical place where dreams come true and pockets empty. LOL. Just as my parents did, my husband and I honeymooned in Magic Kingdom. Since the number seven is of great significance to my husband and I, we wanted to return for our seventh anniversary with our girls. You only live once, right?

I am very blessed with generally well behaved children. My youngest's favorite word is "no" and she even yells it at strangers, but she and her sister are easy to manage. I didn't realize the perfect storm that was about to happen. The stimulations of new environment, coupled with the excitement of their fantasies manifesting in front of their very eyes, lack of sleep and routine, all melded together to create two of the most amazingly challenging children I have ever dealt with in my life. I swear there were moments that my daughters grew horns and tails and cackled at their mother's inability to understand. Thankfully, there was always an adult beverage to help me keep things in perspective. Tantrums, screaming, running, oh my!

Although there were moments of sheer frustration, there were many more moments that brought tears to my eyes. When each of my daughters met their favorite princess or the moment I learned my youngest prefers Donald Duck to any other character or when Aladdin gave my girls a flower, I could feel the happiness well in my eyes. I would not have wanted to be anywhere else, but in that exact moment sharing that experience with them. Having my husband by my side for an entire week as a united team returned the magic to full force.

It is a week since I came back from vacation and I am still exhausted. I thought vacation meant relaxation. What happened?

Our Story

My aunt lived up the block, yet I never saw him. During high school, I had friends that lived on the same block as his, but we frequented the same location at different times. While he went to school, I worked nearby and watched with my friend the good looking men that came and went from his building. He could have been one of them, but he was just part of the scenery at that time. Insignificant... at least, not yet significant.

Our lives seem entwined since the moment we were conceived. We had the same due date. I showed up a little early. He arrived just 20 days later. Our paths seem parallel; similar experiences shaping similar people creating similar understandings about the world around us. Far from the same, we take different roads to get to the same place, but we seem to want to be in the same place. We are both left-handed and we can't purse our lips to whistle, only a smile will do. Just mere coincidence, yet, uniquely shared.

"A diamond in the rough," was what he called me when our paths finally crossed. I had to laugh... silly line, but he was not chasing me. He just took notice and went along his way. Did he know I wished to meet a guy like him one day in the future so, I could spend the rest of my life with him? I knew that it was you that I wanted, but I had no idea it was YOU. The gravitational spin just kept throwing us back together until shortly when it never let us part. We had both come out of long relationships with those who were not for us. He told me he just wanted to be friends... I agreed, but we have not spent a night apart since that moment.

My grandmother, before she passed, had told me that I would know "the one" when I met him. Little did she know what a skeptic I was. In hindsight, I know she brought us together. We met in Palisades Park, the town with the same name as  the amusement park where my grandmother first met my grandfather at all those years ago. Our first apartment was a short block from the town she lived in when she met her love. The day we were approved for a home loan, my uncle/her son changed the locks on a house for sale for the same amount (no houses were going that low at that time). Our future home. Shortly after, we found out that my grandmother's life started in the same town and she had gone to school at the school where her great-grandchildren will go. Actually, no one knew until her sister heard where I lived and shared their story.

Stories of soul mates and love at first sight always seemed ridiculous to me, but yet, I have now seen the wellspring of these fanciful tales. Who knows if its happily ever after or just happily right now. What does it matter? With him, I want today to last forever.

Happy Birthday my love. Thank you for being exactly you. You make this journey more than I ever thought could be. You took my tear drop and showed me the rainbow inside, you are my soul's prism.