200,000 miles is a hell of a long way. For anybody - anywhere. Yet, that is probably a conservative number of how many miles my wife Lisa and I have traveled together. You see, on Friday we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary together. 10. Years. We have lasted 10 years when 3 months after getting married I told her, my beautiful best friend, that I married the wrong person. I did it in all honesty and sincerity because I thought I was being honest. In hindsight - I was being honest but I was also broken, hurt, volatile and looking for a scape goat and - being the 110% perfect ass that I was - I verbally projectile vomitted my failings onto the most beautiful person I have ever met. Yup - Im awesome. #micdrop
It happened when we were in Montana for Thanksgiving and had (3 days earlier) driven up from Texas (where we were living at the time) to visit Lisas' family at their local hangout in Meadow Lake, Columbia Falls, MT. I ended up leaving that trip wanting to be honest after a pretty frank conversation with an amazing friend (whose advise was solid - Im just an idiot) and in being pro-active (what i selfishly thought was vulnerable) I decided to drop that bomb on her right before we had a 26 hour drive back to go ol' Amarillo, Texas. That would be 1,200 miles of the 200,000 that I don't look back fondly on. However.. hear me out..
I don't regret it. I am pained and saddened at, not what I did, but at the hurt that I caused to someone so precious and lovely. It did however, become something that we, togethor, look back on and use as a gauge to see how far we have come. See, its actually something to be extremely proud of to be married for 10 years. I am DAMN proud of what we have gone through and where we have come to. But it wasn't easy. It was hard. DAMN hard. Of our 10 years togethor married (we dated for 5 years and those weren't easy either) Of the 10 years we have been married, I bet 7 of them (well lisa says its more like 8.5 but I was drunk and dont remember) were filled with heartaches, pain, and to be honest, suffering. I love Lisa, more than anything in this world, and I know she loves me the same - but no one has ever hurt me as badly as she has and I know for a fact - I have damaged her more deeply than any every has or will.
So (for anyone who followed the link from IG here) and are wondering "how in the hell did this marriage stuff come from a dirty windshield", taken in the middle of nowhere Winnet, Montana? Let me see if I can piece a thread back to my starting point. I like this picture. I actually like it quite alot. It was fun driving the Power Wagon and flinging open the rear ambulance style door and trying to capture what I was seeing (and Im happy with how it turned out) but when I look at this picture - Im a bit sad. Because this windshield is one, (of very few) that I have looked out of and Lisa hasn't looked out of it with me. It might just be a dirty old windshield, but when you've had your best friend looking out at 200,000 miles rolling past through the same windshield you have - every windshield and every beautiful landscape in front of it, is missing that extra special something because your best friend isn't next to you. To quote my friend Ryan Matchett...
“Nature, in all its grandeur, breathless beauty and majesty was never created to bear the burden of the human heart”
The burden of bearing another persons heart is a gift that I get to share with Lisa.
Cheers,
-R
If you like what you read - thumbs it up. Or heart it. Or do whatever people are suppose to do today. If you don’t like it - well, your bad for wasting your time. HA! (Seriously - if you like it, tell your friends. Im shameless - I want to stay home and write and that means this shit needs to hit the front page of Reddit)