"I'll kiss every scar that's been planted on your heart and love you for who you are"

They say never to cry over the same thing twice, once it's done it's done. Tonight I was crying to let it all out, every last bit…Missy has allowed me to cry, laugh, and feel beautiful. I need to stop thinking I don't deserve the love I have been given these past short five months, and it's truly just a preview of what is to come. I apologize in advance if you are reading this and I seem to be jumping all over the place, but then again, maybe you're used to that in some of my writings. 

Anywho… I have been thinking about a lot and thinking about not thinking. I want to believe that I deserve this love and I truly know I do, she is my reason. All of these things, things that add up to our number five, the fact that we have met before, been to similar places, of all these things, of meeting again on an online dating site ten plus years later and a few hundred miles away, these things are not coincidences…it's fate, soul mates, call it what you want, but it's not coincidence. She truly is my reason. And so is Russell. Russell my schnoodle, my eight year old furry white haired curly love is my reason I didn't give up. 

I wasn't looking for love, I wasn't looking for this, I was slowly giving up and maybe already had, but knew that I just couldn't be any other way. I couldn't be another depressed soul wasting away and causing loved ones pain and worry. But then again, I'm not so sure I wasn't making them not worry by my drinking a lot and making one too many reckless drives home from whatever bar or get together I was at. And now since I have not been drinking since December 28, 2013, people seem to think that it's weird and ask if I will ever drink again, or if I will drink at a social event or special occasion rather, but for right now, this very moment, I will not and do not plan on it, not even at my very own special occasion. My dad, a recovered alcoholic for more years than I have been alive, and I talked just briefly about it, very briefly. I just wanted to see or hear his reaction, and it was good. He mentioned how long he had been sober and that was it, pretty much it, but it was still good for me to hear. There was no judgement, no worry, no questions in his voice or our very short conversation. 

Yes I had great times with alcohol, but I also put myself and maybe even others at times in danger; once I started, I didn't want to stop drinking until I was either incoherent or needed to be walked or driven home only to vomit or pee myself without realization of it all until morning, or hours later when I woke up. I made poor decisions in seeing people who I knew were no good for me and whatnot as well. What was the point of it all? But I can't think about it and I sure as hell can't change any of it. But would I want to change it? No, because it all, the good bad and the ugly, all of it has made me who I am and brought me to where I am. And that I truly can believe. Accidents happen, but this love, this love I have with you, Miss, this is no accident, we were suppose to meet again. 

When I look into her eyes, I feel safe, so safe. I feel loved, unbelievably loved, and I feel beautiful, unbelievably beautiful. And then I started crying when I told her that tonight. All these emotions just keep pouring out of me, they better stop before we say our vows or I'm going to be one hot mess. ha. It's cleansing though. These tears, reliving some of these feelings, it's all kind of cleansing. There really isn't any other word to describe it. 

Miss is not a dog person at all, and I mean at all!! The change I have seen in her with Russell, I couldn't ask for a better change. She loves me so much and has known from the beginning that if she is going to love me, Russell and I come as a package deal. She has been so amazing; the pictures she sends me of him and of the two of them even sometimes when I'm working; the fact that she takes him out at times when I'm so tired or busy doing something; the way she jokes around with him saying his name all excitedly so he gets excited even though she's not so thrilled, haha. She's amazing, and it means the world to me.

 I bought Russell, as a two and a half month old shy little puppy, on a rainy wednesday afternoon March 15, 2006 because I couldn't stand people anymore. I truly just couldn't stand most people, so I got a dog. He was and still is my baby. And all these years, it has been the ongoing joke that I got him because I couldn't stand people, even though it held some truth. Tonight sitting with Miss, my words just poured out without any thought, but they made complete sense. Maybe I got Russell instead of a plant, because I had to be responsible for him, he was a life that now depended on me. No matter what the case was, no matter what my mood was, no matter how depressed I was over my friends leaving me without reasons, and no matter how saddened I was over the multiple losses of family loved ones, I had to get up out of bed. Every morning, I had to get up no matter what and take Russell out, feed him and care for him. He depended on me and before I knew it, I was depending on him. He knows when I am sad, and comforts me, he knows when I'm mad and keeps his distance, he has taught me love in a different form, a bond that is so much stronger than what may appear on the surface as just girl and her dog. Russell was my reason for not giving up. 

You, Miss, you are my reason for not completely giving up. You truly do make me feel the most loved, the most beautiful person in the world. Flash backs of childhood drama like being the fattest ballerina in class, being a soccer midfielder but not being a runner, wearing elastic waist pants til I hit high school, just to name a few and even more so in my adult hood of never being good enough to be someone's girlfriend and all that jazz. So here I am with slighter puffier eyes tonight than this morning, but my heart even fuller. Time to go to bed and lay this all to rest with my most amazing fiancé, and someone I could not be happier to be calling my wife, someday very soon.