Milestones

Today is a big, huge day.

In fact, it’s probably the MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF THE YEAR, worthy of screaming it in all caps.

No, not the end of the Iraq war, although that is pretty significant.

Nick graduates from college today with a master’s degree. (Happy dance!)

To give you an idea of how momentous this is, consider that three years ago he was in a completely different career on a path that meant working nights and weekends for relatively meager pay ad infinitum.

He’s in a different field now, one that he has always loved but that was always just out of reach. It seems when you go down one path, you might lose your way before finding the right one again.

That doesn’t mean the first path was all too terrible, at least not in the beginning. He loved journalism, but we didn’t love what it did to us. There was a lot of sacrifice.

Consider that up until three years ago, we were on different schedules that had gotten so ridiculous we only really saw each other four waking hours a week. Period. No weekends together (no weekends at all).

We call those The Dark Days. We don’t like to talk about them.

At that point, we were questioning our sanity. Several times I was ready to throw in the towel. We fought in the time we did see each other.

During it all, MS kinda happened. Because apparently, someone was told we like challenges (maybe they saw us obsessing over the peg game at Cracker Barrel?).

He had school and work. I had my jobs and the house to take care of. There was no time for me to be sick.

We plowed through, realizing that now more than ever we needed each other to cope with my diagnosis.

Nick took the longview. He knew (or really, really hoped) that it would all lead up to this point, to today.

Consider that this weekend, we will be together, getting our house ready for company. We will probably watch Christmas movies and make some meal for the first time. We’ll probably drink hot chocolate and rake some leaves and sit on the couch and marvel that we really do have it good, considering.

We might even go to Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.

Congrats, my love. I always knew you had it in you (even when I acted differently). Thank you for being you, and for loving me.