How I Almost Didn't Get Married

​Happy August!
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The title of this month’s newsletter might be a little shocking to some of you. In fact, you may be scratching your head right now because how would it be possible that I almost didn’t get married when… in fact, I’ve been married for quite some time. With our 10th wedding anniversary and my 34th birthday today, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the last ten years almost didn’t happen at all. Most weddings are these fairytale affairs that we dream about as kids. Mine wasn't, but before we get to that point, I need to go back a bit. 

After a year of constant changes with him having to give up a full-ride grad school scholarship to come home to have surgery, our entire plan was in flux. Instead of moving to California after our wedding, we were going to be staying close to home. Really close. As in in his hometown and five miles from my own hometown. Perfect right? Well, not really. My job was over 65 miles away, which meant, my five-minute commute from my apartment turned into 90 minutes of highway hell. But with everything that had changed for him, I was willing to make it work. The weekend before our wedding, I said goodbye to my first grown up apartment and moved back home. Since he was a minister, it was out of the question that we would be staying together before the big day so while my furniture and cat lived with him, I moved back in with my parent’s for a few more days.

Things were different being back home, but 24 hours into the arrangement, my world almost exploded. After a strenuous softball game, the night before, my then fiancé started having issues with what he thought was bad leg cramps. As the next day came, he was unable to walk without severe pain. In true Glen fashion, he wrote it off as a sports injury until I came by on my way home to check my cat and to spend time with him. It took literal seconds for me to see something was wrong, but his stubbornness refused to go to the hospital. Until I called in the big guns. My dad. With his help, we convinced him to be seen, and had we not, I wouldn’t be celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary with him.

The next few hours were a whirlwind of doctors, tornado warnings, and trying to be strong for him. He had a massive blood clot in his leg from his last bro road trip. That clot had broken up in what the doctor could only describe as “the most pulmonary embolisms he’s ever seen in someone still alive.” Not exactly what you wanted to hear, but he was right. Glen shouldn’t be alive. The fact that he made it through is a testament to his strength and determination. It was the single most frightening time in my life except for his second bout with blood clots just six years later that tried to take him away from me again.

With Glen in the hospital, we made the decision to cancel our wedding and reschedule it for the following week. My birthday. The one day that I didn’t want to get married but knowing how much it would take to help him recovery, giving him that goal was the fuel he needed to survive. Sure, we had to find a new reception venue, minister, freeze our wedding cake, order new flowers, and so much more, but looking back now, all of that was truly a drop in the bucket in comparison to losing him.

Our first ten years may have been a roller coaster of ups and downs, but I wouldn’t change it for all the money in the world. It’s those experiences that have shaped me into the woman I am today. Experiences that I put into my very own fictional worlds. Relationships aren’t easy, but when you have to fight for them, it makes those special moments even sweeter.

Happy Anniversary, Mr. Paige. Let’s see what the next ten years bring us.