Flipping the Page...

I think our lives are made up like books.  Flipping from one chapter to the next, rolling from comedy to tragedy, introducing new characters and flashbacking to old ones.  Sometimes the chapters drag out and other instances we are on the edge of our seats waiting to find out what lies ahead.  There is no way to predict what the author of our lives has in store, but the journey is all we have, waiting for what is next but always remembering what has happened in previous chapters or at least trying to learn from them.

Today starts a new chapter in my life.  I am sitting on a plane flying to Dubai. Sad to leave the last chapter behind.  Sad to leave the life we made for ourselves in Houston with our dear friends, my budding life as an art teacher and our precious little home.  Sad to leave my family behind when there is such a new and exciting life change literally 10 weeks around the corner. But alas, C'est la vie!

This huge change makes me look back at my many chapters and recall how my story became our story. Jon and I met over 10 years ago.  I had just had knee surgery on my ACL and my parents were having the Southwestern boys basketball team over for Christmas dinner.  I was on some major pain killers but I remember sitting in my parents recliner, getting razzed by a few players and I remember a quite little guy sitting on the arm of my parents couch, wearing cargo jeans and a blue and black zip up nike wind breaker.  I recall thinking this poor kid is such a dork.  Well, flip forward to the chapter in my life titled “Freshman year of college”.  It seemed to me that these two boys had made themselves permanent fixtures in my life… Jack Zinda and Jon Cumberworth.  They were like tweedle dee and tweedle dumb having me compare their newly grown goatees, challenging me in drinking games, having countless IM chats on AOL.  Never demanding but always present.  I never thought much about the two of them until one day, after sharing my napkin with Jon at El Arryo that hey, l liked Jon, like I really liked Jon.  Since we did go to Mouthwestern it only took a day (more like 5 minutes) for those words to exit my mouth and find Jon’s ears thanks to my little birdies, Jessica Wells and Mark Stoner.  As in most college relationships there were many more chapters; frat parties, booze, long weekends, study breaks and our relationship budded and grew.  It flipped from “the long distance relationship” to “the San Antonio Years” to “the Big Day!” to “Job today, Gone tomorrow” to “City of Syrup” with short chapters intermittently mixed in. Now we find ourselves many chapters later ready to start writing the next one…. Which is going to be a big one. 

I look forward to all of you reading and sharing in this next big chapter which will include the main cast; Jon, Me, our furry kids Walter and Charlie, our future munchkin, Leighton and the supporting characters  which have not been announced as of yet.  I promise all the good, bad and funny…. Trust me, they will get funnier I am sure!  I look forward to sharing these times with y’all and I hope you enjoy reading along as our story continues to be written.  Oh yeah, no judging on spelling errors or punctuation problems…  The doctors say I have a case of the dyslexia!