journeywithjayme

So A lot of what I have written has been sentimental and sweet. I talk about Jayme’s caring side, her personality, compassion, and goofiness, all the things that made me fall in love with her. But make no mistake, her level of attraction is off the charts, and I intend to write about it today!

She is not just pretty,  she is drop dead gorgeous. She turns heads everywhere she goes. She is so attractive I look better when she is next to me. She is a hard 10, and it is obvious to everyone who meets her. I clearly out kicked my coverage on this one and am playing wayyyy out of my league. Her beauty is intimidating, truly it is. I don’t know if I would have had the confidence to talk to her if I was simply out and about. Porcelain skin, flowing golden hair, mesmerizing eyes, and fantastic shape to boot, yes she truly is the whole package and then some. It literally makes me stop and stare sometimes, “she dates me???” it makes no sense and I love it so much. Whether dressed up for work, lounging around with friends, or just waking up, she is hands down the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

 

Physical beauty alone is just one small piece to the why-I-love-Jayme puzzle, and to be honest she could look anyway and I would love her just as much, but when the golden heart inside matches the pristine exterior… it sure doesn’t hurt. 🙂

I was watching an episode of The Office last night, it is a later episode, where Dwight is trying to convince his siblings to stay and work their aunt’s farm after her death. They played this song, and the melody transported me. It has nothing to do with love or anything like that, but the feel the song gave me put me in a place that made me so incredibly happy, I don’t think I will see my future without hearing this song in the back drop. So I am going to paint the scene I saw when these notes hit my ears.

Imagine a lush green rolling field, the grass is soft on my feet as I sit on a blanket on a temperate day with a cool steady breeze. I have a pair of worn jeans, old flannel and worn-in leather flip flops on my feet. I am sitting with Jayme to my left. we are looking down on our small home we built ourselves and a few old outbuilding that are worn but still serving a purpose. we lay back and look up at the fast moving clouds. Fluffy ones, whispy ones, and ones that look like shapes. I have my guitar near and we are getting ready to eat our sandwich lunch and drink the growler of beer we got from town. We are in no hurry to get anywhere. The world doesn’t exist beyond our piece of paradise.

The image to me is one of freedom, carefree love, and complete comfort. It is exactly what I want for our lives, maybe not the specifics, but the ideas. We are on the precipice of the next stage of our lives and I feel hopeful for our future and excited to explore how these ideas will take physical form in what is around us. The scene may change and that will be just fine, as long as the person next to me doesn’t.

 

So my hopes were dashed last night of not getting the illness that Jayme had last week. So I type this surrounded in a sea of snotty tissues, but I won’t let it deter me from writing a very important post.

Being sick sucks, you feel miserable, you can’t do the things you want and most of all, you are helpless to some extent. Sure if you HAD to get up to get a drink from the fridge you could, but when you are really sick it feels like an impossible task. When you were growing up you always had your parents or someone around to take care of you, but as you move away and get older, you are looking for that special someone who can nurse you back to health without simotaniously ripping your head off for sniffling for 12 straight hours. Jayme is that person for me.

Last week I got to care for her, prepare all the meals, clean, get her things, rub her back, whatever she needed to feel even the smallest bit better. It feels amazing to get to provide such fundamental care for the one you love. It puts action behind all those words and proclamations of love. It is one thing to say in sickness and health, and quite another to dode on them for days. And just as I did for her, I know she will for me too.

There isn’t a test, to make sure she will care for me the way I want to be. I know she loves me and would do anything to take away my pain or misery, even to her own detriment. She is selfless and full of all the best qualities you could want in a caregiver.  She is the love of my life and will always be my Dr. Babe.

 

Jayme has started her new position and now she gets to join me on my 75 minute commute. That long drive dodging semis, miles of open roads and the morning darkness. We did this awhile back too, when she was still interning with us. Nights we didn’t want to be apart, she would stay and ride with me. I had fond memories of these times, I cherished them so much. Now I have those same feelings again. It  is an amazing experience, getting to have my babe all to myself for the first hour of my day and also ending it the same way.

 

Today we talked about wedding planning, we talked about our venue we want, centerpieces, guest list, where we would do our cocktail hour, and other details. It felt soooooooo good to start planning again, and this time, our engagement is imminent. The things we are talking about will soon be deposits and dates instead of abstract ideas. This wedding, it will just be one day. One day to share our love with our friends and family. But as much as I am looking forward to that day and its hopeful perfection, what I am looking forward to is the rest of the days. The ones where I get to call her my wife, where we share a name, a home, and life together forever, but for now, I will look forward to my 4:30 shotgun rider.

Flashing lights, orange barrels, neon vests, and big machines are all tell tale signs that a construction zone is coming up. During my two years driving between St. Cloud and the cities I have seen many different projects being worked on. Apartment buildings and highways are the main two that come to mind. The landscape changes with the passage of time. The work in the beginning takes a lot of time, and honestly, it often makes me wonder if they are even working at all sometimes. But after the foundation is finished and the plumbing and electrical are run. the frame flies up and then solid walls tend to follow. Of course it also is long after those walls go up before the building can open up. Appliances, painting, flooring, etc etc etc all need to be in place. I bring this up tonight because I have been doing a lot of reflecting on my and Jayme’s situation.

In many ways, a relationship goes through stages of construction as well.

1. Planning and landscaping: Here you are preparing yourself to build a relationship on, and for me this meant figuring out what was important to me, what I liked in a person, what I didn’t like. This step is for making mistakes, and while I made plenty, each one of them prepared me and my heart for the relationship that was going to be my last.
2. Foundation and utilities: Once you found the right “contractor” it is time to start and develop the basis of your relationship. people can see the changes right away, the newness of what is going on, but what you cannot see is the care taken to insure what is started is on level ground. Jayme and Me had an immediate attraction and a magnetism that showed others around us we were happy. Happy is nice, but it will only burn for so long without a solid foundation to rely on, so we invested painstakingly into each other and what would become the basis for our relationship. Trust, honest communication, and thoughtfulness. These pillars keep our relationship from crumbling under the weight of the future.
3. Framework: Once the foundation is set it is time to build memories and a life together. The frame is small things, not of substance, it is time together, rides in the car, dates, concerts, and planning a future. The memories that you make come quick and will continue to grow, rising faster and faster. and while they are the bones of your relationship, their main goal is to support the substance within.
4. Interior finishing: These are the pieces of our relationship you cannot see, but are what mean the most to us. This blog has given anyone who reads it a glimpse into what makes us function and love, but it is just that, a glimpse. They cannot see the moments we celebrate our success together, the attentive daily conversations about bowel movements or who said what at work today. While the framework and exterior of our relationship shows the world what we represent, it doesn’t show how we have gotten here, The little things, the details that make our outward appearance what it is.

And just like the greatest structures in the world, relationships that stand the test of time all need renovation and to be cared for. So I intend to always care for the relationship me and Jayme have built. 

2017 has been great to me and Jayme and it is barely 26 days old, I followed her in getting a new job (at the same company) and now we are poised to move in the next two months as well. Life events are abound, but we still have found time for fun. An impromptu happy hour turned into a 8 hour bar hopping fest full of pool, darts, and cards (oh and of course a little karaoke). It was a fun night catching up with friends and making sure those bonds don’t break with our move.

Tonight we have another fun event ahead of us, Josh Abbott band concert in Minneapolis, and then two more nights of celebration (basketball with Jayme’s friends and a game night at a friend’s house Saturday). The hits just keep coming and I couldn’t be more excited for all that is happening and is going to happen.

The Namesake for this post is inspired by a song (go figure) by The Band Perry. Now as a people, pioneers were brave, they went out into the wild to establish a new life in an uncertain place. they were seeking something special, something original, something personal. No one pioneer was the same, they came from different places with different pursuits, but their uniting factor was their adventurous risk and willingness to commit to the unknown dangers ahead. Now moving to St. Cloud and starting new jobs might not be on par with crossing the continent in a covered wagon, but our real adventure is in loving so fiercely. What we seek is commitment, and that requires a willingness to open up yourself to another. They can see your weaknesses, your failures. the Vulnerability is real and scary. But like the Pioneers, the reward is worth the risk.

That same vulnerability and openness that can cause pain and suffering is the same that brings us the indescribable joy of security, love, and companionship. And while we might have scars to show for our journey, we also have someone who cares for each one.

I quick late night post before heading off to bed. Jayme is fast asleep feet from me as I type this, rarely is she in the room for these events, but between her delusional sleepy haze and her horrific vision I think I will be okay. I wanted to write quickly about tradition and what it means to me.

Previously I talked about making pancakes in the morning, or an annual family excursion. But tradition is different from traditions to me. While all those traditions (such as going up to Mille Lacs with Jayme’s family) will be something I look forward to, I am looking forward to us being the tradition. Heisman, Nobel, Pulitzer, these names are legendary in their fields, they ARE tradition. Now I never expect our love to inspire a trophy or award, but I want it to be synonymous with the greatest of love. And that tradition and legacy are created with each kind word, selfless gesture, and unprompted moment of romance. This love is hard work, it takes effort, but if I want our love to be steeped in tradition, we need to steep our tradition in love. That is a challenge that I am up for.

It finally happened! Jayme got a job up where I am working. this means we can officially start the countdown to an easier commute and the next chapter in our lives. we have been in what has felt like an endless holding pattern for the length of our relationship. Always waiting for the next step in our lives. Not that we were wasting time, but that we were waiting on something to come along and effect us. this is one of those things. I am glad to say that today is one of those days.

This job is more than just an opportunity for us to start a life, but a great opportunity for Jayme working in a field she is passionate about with a clear path to something greater. It was so great to get the news from her. I could hear the pride in her voice as she realized a dream come true. I also heard relief, gone now is the stress of “what happens next”. we are ready to move away from worry and towards tomorrow. Of course it is bittersweet to leave the close proximity of friends and some family, but the move will be great for us and allow for our relationship continue to blossom. It’s times like these that remind me that we can see success. 2016 was marred with several disappointed ends to job prospects for both of us. We kept faith in ourselves and what we wanted. That focus and drive led to Jayme getting this job, it is what has kept us going when things have been tough, but most of all, it is what is at the core of this relationship, unwavering and unfiltered dedication.

I am so proud of the woman Jayme is and continues to grow into. She is simply what makes my world go around. So I end this post early because today is one for celebration, and there is only one person I want to celebrate with and she will be walking through that door at any minute. Cheers to you my babe, I will always be your biggest fan.

Welcome to 2017! It is a new year and we celebrated in style with a wedding at a fancy ballroom in Duluth. The event was elegant and the perfect way to ring in what is sure to be a year of next steps and big surprises 😉

It was hard to think that Jayme and I have been together for a year, but even harder to think that there was no day in all of 2016 that she was not apart of my life for. I don’t mean hard as in it is difficult to have her share all those things with me, but that what still feels new and fresh is already seeing its second NYE. I have seen our relationship grow and change with the seasons, I have watched as situations and circumstances have pushed us to new heights and tested our resolve. We have struggled and argued, but never settling on dismay. We always carry the lantern, we always look in, we always pull together. I do not know all that is in store for us with 2017, Hell I don’t know what is in store for next weekend, but what I do know is that we will go through it together. No matter what the storm we will weather it together. That girl is mine and I am hers and it shall be that way from now until forever, and that is enough for me.

I am always dealing with deadlines, whether it is end of month reports, letting friends know when to make plans, ordering pizza before they close (happens more then you would think) deadlines drive a lot of my life and the lives of others. I keep thinking about my big deadline that is looming, how long before proposing before Jayme gets anxious about the situation.

It has been over a year of solid dating and living together for over 9 months. I don’t want it to feel like waiting for waiting sake, but it would be nice to get our future move all locked in place. Have a set plan. But then I catch myself wondering, why? why do I need to wait for some deadline to pass before I do what I want to? I have no doubts about it happening  or on the plan we have figured out.

Jayme is it, she has found a way to be everything at once, meet my needs, my expectations, all while handling my flaws. I am at peace when I am with her but also excited at the same time. There is no deadline to meet before making this decision, I think it might be time to set the plan in motion, to start the actual coordinating and details of presenting with Jayme the only thing I can to show my appreciation for her love, all of me.

Life upcoming will be made sweeter and fuller with my forever partner.