Military Love

Chapter 23- One Year Later

Life was good.

Life was beautiful.

Life was something I hadn't experienced for a long time before Jerry and I reconnected. 

I had an amazing life with him so far. We had been living together for a year and I was completely and utterly happy. I just want to smile every time I think of how far I've come. How I started over a year ago, lonely and depressed, staying home as all of my friends went out and met potential boyfriends or just flirts- still filling their minds with something that I had completely lacked for five years. I don't exactly know what had gotten into me. I don't know if I was on crack or what, but I snapped out of this funk that I had been in for so long, and wanted to experience something again, something that I no longer felt. I realized that I had to not figure myself out, the real reason I came to Boston besides getting away from the harsh memories back at home, but I had to create myself. Create something that was worth living again.

I realized that my imagination on life was a canvas, and I had to paint a picture with the colors that filled life up. At first, I started with the darks; my comfort, but thoughts on sadness and the life I had unwillingly walked away from. When I had reconnected with Jerry, it was a slow process, but I began to paint brighter and more noticeable colors; something that was out of my comfort zone, but something that I remembered like a distant memory. Today, I paint pastels. Pastels, making me think of our warm home, our life, our love.

There was also something else that had caught my eye. Something that I never felt before, never experieced. It was brand new to me, and I wasn't even sure if I was close to ready for this one; even though when I figured it out, I had a huge smile on my face.

I hadn't gotten my period in a while.

I knew there was something that was just too good to be true happening. And then I started to have this nausea in the morning. I know, absolutely disgusting. But then I realized it was something beautiful. Three different tests. Three different brands.

I drank three whole vitamin waters before my very first pee on the stick, that usually one dreads unless you're trying. We weren't trying, but we also weren't not trying. I mean, we weren't even married. But we both want a family. Not intentionaly were we to have one starting now, but I guess it's the surprises in life that are the ones that count the most. I mean, just look at Jerry and I.

I washed my hands, waiting for the little pink sign to come up as either positive or negative. Plus or minus. Do it or don't. To be, or not to be; that is the question. Great, now I'm reciting Hamlet.

I tapped my foot on our bathroom tile floor. I love being able to say that. 

"Our" this, and "our" that. It was a shared item mutually between each other. It's funny how the little things still make me have butterflies.

I was growing impatient. I wasn't always, exactly the patient person around here. What if I was? Jerry is on his way home from a business trip in New York tomorrow night. How should I say it? I'm thinking dinner at our favorite restaurant that we go to together- Legal Seafood, right on the harbour. Yeah, we'll even get a seat next to the window, so if it snows tonight like they say it will, we get a beautiful view of the lights on the water with the start of winter coming down.

I looked down at this plastic stick telling my fate, practically mapping out the rest of my life.

The next thing I could think of was: Oh, what am I going to wear to the dinner?

I was pregnant.