Slowly, he turned the bottle of mustard over above his burger and gave it a tap. Tap, tap, tap. It wasn't one of those easy, plastic, just give it a little squeeze and produce a steady stream of yum all over your sandwich. Tap, tap, tap, tap. No. It was the old style in a glass bottle where it sits like concrete at the bottom in an atmosphere where gravity has no effect.
Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. There was no banging the damn thing onto the table as I would do. No anxiously shoving a butter knife into it setting free a golf ball sized glop. Nope. Just, tap tap tap tap. Tap, tap, tap. "Hmm, it's too hard," and he gently set the defiant thing back on to table. Shane is amazing. I mean, really amazing. Nothing seems to create anxiety in this man. A trait that has served us incredibly well as of late.
How can I explain this? Well, Shane and I had a rocky beginning. That's a lovely way of putting it, isn't it? When I met Shane, he was partying naked in front of a bon-fire and I knew he was for me. Unfortunately, we were uncertain about each other and our chemical induced eyes wandered a little. More than our eyes wandered, actually.
I am aware and ashamed of the fact that some of you were there. You saw what happened. My best friend today was Shane's best friend first. When Shane and I first got together, she told him I was bad news for him. This, I'm so sorry to say, put a slight rift in their friendship. One that, to this day, hasn't quite mended properly. She was right though. She loved him and was trying to protect him.
So what happened? What could possibly heal up damage like that? Well, a miracle actually. The details of which wouldn't be appropriate for me to go into in a blog. I'd like to use the word "saved" but that would imply something religious and Shane and I aren't really the religious types. But, something sort of like "saved" did happen to us and when we looked at each other with fresh eyes, we fell madly and forever in love.
And the no anxiety thing? I'm serious about that. Mustard is one thing. I'd flip a gasket over something like that so you can just imagine what our kids' problems are doing to me. Shane has stayed calm and kept a sense of humor through it all. Just a couple of days ago we were filling out the paperwork for Isabel's neuro-psychologist and it was asking us about family history. It asked us if anyone in our immediate family had any of the following and to check all that applied (we checked all of the following):
Neurological conditions - both sides
Problems with aggressiveness - both sides
Problems with attention, activity, and impulse control - both sides
Learning disabilities - both sides
Mental retardation - both sides
Depressive disorder - both sides
Alcohol abuse - both sides
Drug abuse - both sides
We got done with this and Shane smiled, looked at me, and said, "You know? We should've filled this out BEFORE we had kids!" We laughed and laughed and it dawned on me suddenly how much I love my husband. I would follow him to the end of the world and if he wanted to jump off I would plummet with him into uncertainty. I wouldn't change anything or give him up for all the dreams, all the money, and all the normal children in the whole world.
