City Girl Marries Country Boy

City Girl Marries Country Boy

Life can be funny. Sometimes/lots of times you want something really, really bad and you don’t get it. So you give up and move along with living. And then, when you’ve almost forgotten about it, that thing you spent so many hours wishing for suddenly pops right back up in front of you.

That’s what happened to me with my Mr. Wonderful, and my first inclination was to leap right in. Then I wondered if Mr. Wonderful was as wonderful as I imagined him to be when I was 10. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning of the story of City Girl Marries Country Boy.

I grew up around a bunch of stinky boys. I was the only girl. For miles. Somehow, my brothers always had guys that came out to hang around. But there were only 2 girls around me. And they lived many miles away from our farm. And they rarely ever got to come over. Thus, I didn’t have many girls/friends to play with.

One day, a super cute boy came to hang out with the stinky boys and he actually talked to me. And, he didn’t call me names like the others. Or shoot chinaberry berries from a wrist rocket at me. Or point the BB gun at me and tell me to run. He actually said hello. And smiled at me. And did I mention that he was super cute?

We attended the same church, so I was certain that at least once a week, I would get to see him (cue the Hallelujah music). Seeing as how he was first and foremost, friends with my brothers and the fact that he was 4 years older than me, even if he did like me, he couldn’t really show it. So he got to put up with me staring at him all moony eyed, slack jawed, trembling with desire. And he got to watch me get creamed by the stinky boys, who just wanted me to disappear. Forever.

One day, when I was about 12 or 13, I was in the church when (cue the halleluiah music again) Mr. Gorgeous walked in. It was just the two of us in the sanctuary. I was on the steps and he walked up and gave me the sweetest, most gentle most knee buckling, hiney cringing, heart palpitating, hair curling, ear ringing tiny little kiss. I’d say it was the best kiss ever, but I’d never been kissed by a boy before. If I wasn’t in love with him before I sure was after that! I didn’t get to kiss him again for a long time, but sometimes, he’d stand up to all the stinky boys and tell them to quick picking on me. Or he’d smile at me and give me a quick hug when the stinksters weren’t watching. And I just knew I was totally, head over heels in love with him.

This passionate one-sided love affair of mine lasted many years. Since he was older than me, the timing wasn’t all that great. Someone in high school couldn’t be seen going out with a middle schooler! And when I was in high school, he was already off to college.

As I said before, life marched on, and we both led our separate lives. It didn’t help that I was forced to move over an hour away at the beginning of my sophomore year to the wicked big city. Or that he went away to college an hour away in the opposite direction and continued to live in really small, really country-like towns.

Through the years, I’d pass through my old hometown, and I’d always look up Mr. Gorgeous for a visit. We stayed in touch sporadically until eventually the time gap between visits turned into about 12 years. But fate - being its silly self - intervened. Boy oh boy did it ever. I was newly single after a 21 year marriage. And as it turned out, he was newly single after about a 19 year relationship. I decided to get back in touch with my old roots so one time while passing through the town we grew up in, I looked him up again. And we struck up a conversation like we had never left off.

Here’s the really exciting part; the first time we visited in person after all those years, it was like electricity was sparking around us! I think he felt it too! We went through the motions of the catch up conversation and having dinner but honestly, I think both of us were just waiting for the moment when we could kiss again. You have to understand – the last time I remember kissing him was when I was 12 or 13! That was about a thousand years ago! Oh sure, he watched me grow up and blossom but back then I was a slender, firm, perky ifyaknowwhatImean young lady with long, glossy hair. At our reunion, I was a 40 something, slightly wrinkled, slightly saggy, mom with really short hair. Since I knew he hadn’t seen me since I was a young wild child, I was really scared that he wouldn’t like the softer, mellower me. Of course, he was also a little more wrinkly, saggy, practically bald guy but that’s not who I saw. I saw Mr. Gorgeous with the wavy dark brown locks and the ultra-kissable lips.

As the old saying goes, the rest is history. We finally got to date right out there in the open! The stinky boys had grown up and didn’t get their kicks thinking of ways to torture me anymore, or care who I was seeing. Who cared that we were a few years apart in age? Actually, who cared at all except for us? All the public saw were two, 40 something, slightly wrinkly, slightly saggy, slightly hairless people making absurdly dramatic googly eyes at one another, having the time of their lives.

And that’s the basic story in a nutshell. We dated, we broke up, we dated again and we finally ended up taking a trip to the mountains of Tennessee and got married by a hillbilly preacher who wore overalls and tennis shoes while standing on the side of a mountain. But that’s another story for another day.